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In 1938, while sitting in a cafe on the Boulevard Saint-Michel in Paris, Jean-Paul Sartre experienced a pivotal moment of revelation that would shape his philosophical thinking. Reflecting on the ideas of the philosopher Edmund Husserl, particularly phenomenology—how we experience the world through consciousness—Sartre encountered a breakthrough in his understanding of existence and freedom.
At the heart of this insight was the concept of nothingness (néant) and its relationship to human freedom. Sartre realized that consciousness is not a passive observer of the world but an active, creative force that projects meaning onto an indifferent, meaningless existence. In that moment, he grasped that human beings are “condemned to be free”—always making choices, even when choosing not to act.
This realization became central to Sartre’s existentialist philosophy, particularly the idea that existence precedes essence. Humans are not born with a predetermined purpose; instead, they must create their own meaning through their actions and choices. Sartre’s cafe revelation crystallized his belief in radical human freedom, the responsibility that accompanies it and the understanding that meaning is not inherent in the world but something we must actively create.
A series of key quotations vividly express existentialism’s central themes: freedom, authenticity, the search for meaning (or its absence) and the challenge of living a fully conscious life in an uncertain world.
Sartre’s declaration that “Man is nothing else but what he makes of himself” encapsulates the existential belief in radical freedom and the absence of any preordained purpose. This idea underscores the responsibility each individual has to shape their own life.
Simone de Beauvoir’s famous line from The Second Sex—“One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman”—critiques societal roles and constraints, illustrating how existentialism intersects with identity and gender, emphasizing the process of self-creation beyond social constructs.
Albert Camus’s stark statement “There is but one truly serious philosophical problem and that is suicide” from The Myth of Sisyphus confronts the question of whether life is worth living in the face of its absurdity, introducing the existential challenge of finding meaning in an indifferent universe.
Martin Heidegger’s observation “Everyone is the other and no one is himself” captures the loss of authenticity that occurs when individuals conform to societal expectations rather than embracing their true selves.
Existentialist philosophy originated in the 19th century as a response to modernity, industrialization and the decline of traditional religious and philosophical beliefs. Thinkers like Søren Kierkegaard and Friedrich Nietzsche grappled with individual existence, freedom and the search for meaning in an increasingly secular world.
Kierkegaard introduced the concept of a subjective “leap of faith,” suggesting that individuals must create their own meaning, particularly in relation to God. He emphasized the anxiety and dread that accompany the responsibility for personal choices, ideas central to existentialism.
Though not a strict existentialist, Martin Heidegger contributed to its development with the concept of “being-toward-death” in Being and Time (1927), highlighting human existence as finite and contingent. His focus on “authenticity” and confronting life’s meaning in a world without inherent order influenced existentialist thought on individual experience. The disillusionment following both world wars further fueled the rise of existentialism, as figures like Sartre and Albert Camus explored how individuals must create meaning in a world devoid of preordained purpose.
Several important pre– and post–World War II plays and novels deeply engage with existentialist themes, exploring issues like freedom, absurdity, alienation and the search for meaning.
Franz Kafka’s The Trial portrays an individual who is arrested and prosecuted by an incomprehensible authority without ever knowing his crime. This sense of powerlessness, alienation and arbitrary justice reflects central existential concerns.
Samuel Beckett’s absurdist play Waiting for Godot captures the existential dilemma of waiting for meaning in a seemingly meaningless world.
Similarly, Sartre’s No Exit famously depicts hell as other people, as the characters are locked together, forced to confront self-deception and the inescapability of their own judgments.
Camus’s The Stranger features a protagonist whose dispassionate outlook, indifference toward societal norms and eventual confrontation with the absurdity of life and death echo Camus’s existentialist ideas. His novel The Plague focuses on how townspeople respond to a deadly outbreak—ranging from indifference to defiance—reflecting existential struggles with suffering, human solidarity and the absurdity of existence.
These works illustrate the individual’s confrontation with meaninglessness, the burden of freedom and the search for authenticity in an indifferent world, while also portraying characters grappling with moral and psychological complexities, making them key cultural expressions of existential philosophy.
Existentialist concerns significantly influenced both psychology and sociology by focusing on individual experience, freedom and meaning making in human life. In psychology, existential themes are central to existential psychotherapy, developed by figures like Viktor Frankl and Rollo May. Their approach emphasizes individuals’ ability to confront anxiety, suffering and the inherent meaninglessness of life. It highlights how people construct meaning and make choices in the face of existential dilemmas. Concepts like freedom, isolation and authenticity remain key in therapy aimed at helping individuals cope with existential angst.
Frankl’s logotherapy builds on the existential idea that humans are driven by the need to find meaning, especially in suffering. Rather than merely treating symptoms, existential psychology encourages individuals to confront the realities of death, freedom and isolation as a path to living more authentically.
In sociology, existentialist ideas have shaped discussions of social structures, agency and identity. Existentialism prompted sociologists to explore how individuals navigate systems of power, class and culture while striving to maintain personal freedom and authenticity. The concept of anomie—a sense of normlessness in modern societies—echoes existential concerns about alienation and the loss of meaning in an increasingly rationalized world.
Anthony Giddens’s work on agency and structure engages with existentialist notions of individual choice within constraining social systems, reflecting how sociological theories have incorporated existential ideas.
Ultimately, existentialism’s focus on freedom, responsibility and the quest for meaning has shaped both disciplines, influencing therapeutic approaches in psychology and the analysis of individual agency within social structures in sociology.
The post–World War II dominance of existentialism reflected a broader crisis of meaning across the Western world, driven by disillusionment with war and moral collapse. Its eventual decline, however, mirrors a philosophical shift toward more pragmatic concerns and the waning relevance of metaphysical anxiety in today’s consumer-driven, media-saturated society.
Existentialism rose to prominence in the mid-20th century as a response to the horrors of war, offering a framework that emphasized human freedom, responsibility and the absurdity of existence. It resonated with a world grappling with destruction and the collapse of traditional values. Yet, as material prosperity and technological advances became the focus of modern life, existentialism’s confrontation with freedom, anguish and meaninglessness seemed increasingly out of step with a more optimistic, consumer-oriented world.
By the 1960s and 1970s, new intellectual movements began to challenge the core tenets of existentialism. Structuralism, post-structuralism and deconstruction critiqued the existentialist emphasis on individual agency, proposing instead that human behavior is shaped by deeper social, linguistic and cultural structures. Thinkers like Michel Foucault and Roland Barthes argued that existentialists had overstated human autonomy, suggesting that language, power and societal forces exert far greater influence on individuals than existentialists acknowledged.
At the same time, Marxism’s focus on collective struggle and economic forces as the primary shapers of human life offered a strong counterpoint to existentialism’s individualism. The rise of identity politics and collective movements—such as the civil rights movement, feminist movements and anticolonial struggles—underscored the importance of race, gender and class as identity markers shaped by systems of oppression, which existentialism largely failed to address in its focus on individual authenticity.
The postwar economic boom and the rise of mass media further contributed to existentialism’s decline. Affluent Western societies became increasingly focused on consumerism, globalization and technology, reducing the urgency of existentialist concerns with meaning and the absurdity of existence. Immediate gratification through consumer culture and the distractions of mass media diminished the space for introspective philosophical inquiry. Existentialist themes of freedom, authenticity and personal responsibility, while still influential, were overshadowed by more collective and pragmatic approaches to understanding modern society.
In sum, while existentialism played a crucial role in responding to the moral and philosophical crises of the mid-20th century, its focus on individual meaning and metaphysical concerns became less central as society shifted toward collective identity, structural critiques and the pursuit of material well-being in an increasingly globalized, technologically driven world.
Existentialism, once a dominant intellectual force during my young adulthood, has largely faded from popular consciousness. In the mid-20th century, names like Sartre and Camus were widely recognized, synonymous with deep philosophical exploration of human freedom, meaning, alienation and the absurd. These ideas resonated profoundly with postwar generations grappling with the trauma of World War II and the existential threats of the Cold War.
So, what happened? Why has existentialism lost its once-central place in the public imagination?
First, the cultural and political contexts that fueled existentialism have shifted. In the aftermath of World War II, the devastation and looming threat of nuclear annihilation created an atmosphere of existential dread. Sartre and Camus tapped into this anxiety, addressing the challenge of finding meaning in a world that seemed indifferent or hostile. But as the immediate threat of destruction receded and the West stabilized—at least superficially—existentialism’s message seemed less urgent.
Second, intellectual movements like postmodernism began to eclipse existentialism. Postmodernism, with its skepticism of grand narratives and emphasis on the fluidity of truth and identity, undercut existentialism’s focus on individual meaning and authenticity. Where existentialism grappled with the burden of freedom and the absurd, postmodernism questioned whether such concepts were even coherent, instead focusing on the deconstruction of identity and culture.
In addition, societal attention shifted toward technological innovation, consumerism and globalization, leaving existentialism’s preoccupation with personal meaning and alienation seeming abstract and disconnected from the material concerns of modern life. As culture became more focused on entertainment, wealth and technology, the individual search for meaning began to feel out of place in a world increasingly defined by immediacy and gratification.
Philosophy itself moved in different directions. The rise of analytic philosophy, with its focus on logic, language and precision, marginalized the literary and metaphorical nature of existentialist thought. Existentialism’s introspective and often ambiguous style—found in works like Sartre’s Being and Nothingness or Camus’s The Myth of Sisyphus—gave way to more formal, narrowly focused academic research. This professionalization of philosophy reduced existentialism’s visibility and cultural resonance.
The rise of therapeutic culture also played a role in existentialism’s decline. Modern self-help movements and psychological approaches offer practical tools for navigating life’s difficulties, often simplifying existentialist questions into matters of personal growth and well-being. While existentialism demands confrontation with discomfort and ambiguity, contemporary culture tends to seek solutions that mitigate or avoid these feelings. As society became more focused on optimizing happiness, existentialism’s embrace of suffering and uncertainty seemed less appealing.
That said, existentialist themes remain alive in literature, film and psychology, even if they don’t explicitly label themselves as existentialist. These works focus on the absurdity of life, the search for meaning, freedom, alienation and the individual’s struggle to assert agency in a seemingly indifferent or chaotic world. They include:
- Birdman, about a washed-up actor who once starred as a superhero but who now struggles to stage a comeback through a Broadway play. The film explores the protagonist’s struggles with identity, relevance and meaning as he navigates between his own desires and societal expectations.
- Her, about a man who falls in love with an AI operating system, examines loneliness, the boundaries between the real and artificial and the absurdity of human relationships in a hyperconnected yet alienating world.
- Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, about a son and father struggling to survive in a desolate postapocalyptic landscape, grapple with existential questions about meaning, hope and morality in a world that seems to offer neither hope nor moral certainty.
- Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go (2005), set in a dystopian world where human clones are raised for organ donation, follows three friends as they grapple with the meaning and absurdity of their short lives.
- Mohsin Hamid’s Exit West (2017) explores themes of migration, identity and existential uncertainty in a globalized world where borders and identities constantly shift.
- Nick Drnaso’s Sabrina (2018) is a graphic novel that follows the aftermath of a woman’s disappearance and explores the paranoia, isolation and existential confusion wrought by modern media culture.
Ultimately, existentialism’s decline reflects broader societal shifts—away from the moral and existential crises of midcentury Europe and toward a world focused on technological progress, consumerism and identity politics. Yet the core questions it raised—about how to live meaningfully in the face of absurdity and freedom—are perennial. As our world becomes ever more complex and fragmented, existentialism’s inquiry into the human condition may find renewed relevance, challenging us to confront the most profound questions of existence once again.
Existential concerns continue to resonate across various fields today, from psychology to sociology and politics, even if the existentialist label is less prominent. Issues like anxiety, isolation and the challenge of creating meaning in an indifferent universe—central to existentialist thought—remain integral to modern life.
Anxiety, in particular, is a dominant force, reflected in rising mental health struggles tied to identity, freedom and choice. Viewing anxiety as a philosophical and existential issue, rather than just a psychological one, shifts our focus from individual pathology to a broader reflection on the human condition.
For existentialists, anxiety—or angst—is not just personal distress but a core aspect of human existence. It stems from our awareness of freedom, responsibility and the inevitability of death. We feel this anxiety because life offers no inherent meaning and we must create our own. Each decision reflects our responsibility for shaping our lives, with no external authority guaranteeing we are making the right choices. This awareness of freedom and responsibility generates a profound sense of unease.
Anxiety also arises from confronting life’s inherent absurdity—the realization that life has no predetermined purpose and meaning is something we must construct. This understanding forces us to recognize that our ambitions, beliefs and efforts are fragile and subjective. In addition, anxiety stems from facing death, as Heidegger noted, when we confront the finite nature of our existence and the nothingness that awaits us. This is not pathological but a natural outcome of grappling with our temporality.
Therapeutic approaches like existential psychotherapy continue to engage with themes of meaninglessness, freedom and death anxiety, reflecting the legacy of existentialist thinkers. In popular culture, films, literature and art exploring isolation, moral ambiguity and the search for meaning show how these concerns persist.
Contemporary issues—identity anxiety, the pressure of choice and the search for meaning in a fragmented world—are steeped in existential themes. The rise of secularism, technological change and social disconnection has kept the question of how to live authentically relevant, even as newer philosophies and social theories offer different frameworks. Existentialism’s focus on individual agency remains crucial in modern debates about self-determination, identity and purpose, making its core concerns as timely as ever.
Contemporary responses to existential issues take new forms. Rather than engaging directly with philosophical debates about being, modern approaches often favor practical, psychological strategies for managing uncertainty and anxiety. The rise of mindfulness, self-help movements and cognitive-behavioral therapies reflects a shift toward action-oriented solutions aimed at improving well-being rather than engaging in abstract inquiry.
Social movements focused on identity, self-determination and freedom continue to echo existentialist ideas of authenticity and agency but often approach these concerns from a collective or systemic perspective, diverging from existentialism’s emphasis on solitary individualism.
Although existentialism may no longer dominate philosophical discourse, its core questions—freedom, identity, meaning and mortality—remain as relevant as ever. Modern life still grapples with the same uncertainties, now framed within psychological, social and practical contexts. The essence of existential inquiry endures: How do we navigate a life without guarantees or predetermined meaning?
In the face of contemporary challenges—such as technological isolation and shifting personal identities—existentialism’s legacy persists. Whether through therapy, social movements or personal reflection, we confront the same questions. By viewing anxiety not as pathology but as a reflection of the human condition, we open ourselves to a more authentic life, embracing the freedom, uncertainty and responsibility that shape our existence. In doing so, we keep the existential quest for meaning alive in an ever-changing world.
