Take this opportunity to share additional thoughts or questions you have on Frankl’s book, Man’s Search for Meaning. You may consider using the discussion questions I handed out in class as the starting point for your response. Please aim to compose between 5 and 8 sentences. (a solid paragraph)
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I think it’s very interesting that the people who were more likely to survive in the concentration camps were ones that held onto their creativity and imagination. You would usually think that strength and health were essential in being able to survive, but it seems that when that is all you have, it is very difficult to find meaning and in turn survive. Those with imagination were able to “escape” from reality, and also picture a future apart from the camps, like Frankl. Also, Aristotle’s definition of being human, which was to have the ability to reason and choose, can be seen trying to be stripped away from the people in the concentration camps, but that the ones who had a higher likelihood of surviving were ones who could find ways of making decisions and reasoning. An example would be people who gave their food to others at times. This ability to make decisions, and in a way be free, seemed to help keep the human element among those people.
I agree with Frankl’s claim that people seek for life meaning and it is what motivates ourselves. However, because meaning of life differs so much from one to another, it seems to me extremely hard to find a one solid meaning of life that you can live toward for. In this society today, meaning seems to change easily, and I agree that materialism is what prevents us from reaching meaning. Because we tend to only care about gaining what we can see in short terms, looking toward further “good” is hard. I think many people including me would feel lost when asked about the future that is too far away from now, and meaning of life is in fact too vague to actually be earned. Thus, finding meaning in suffering is not something that everyone can do and something people tend to give up because the answer is not provided in a solid form and need to be cleared by ourselves. It is reasonable that those who had rich interior life were more likely to survive in the concentration camps because they could find meaning in its vagueness.
The fact that people with stronger minds rather than simply healthy body had greater opportunities to survive proves how mighty our minds are. With no doubt, a healthy body is the foundation to survive in concentration camps; however, what really matters are the minds, which can accompany our body to overcome physical cruelty or can tear us down easily.
While reading Frankl’s concepts of how strong belief people to survive, I connected the reading with one of my conversations with my friends, Joel, whose great grandparents were holocaust survivors. He told me that losing faith in life or even their religion was a common phenomenon in the concentration camps, and those who failed to find a meaning in their lives after being captured were the ones often times would die sooner. In fact, most people’s faith or belief had avoidably faded after a long time, some of them stopped attending religious gatherings or stopped following rules on holidays. Therefore, what really mattered was how fast their faith eroded, or in other words, how strong their faith were to rebel all the cruelty.
Therefore, combining the information in the conversation, I totally agree with Franki’s idea that people with stronger minds were more likely to survive.
As I was reading through the book, I found it is really interesting to link Frankl’s idea of meaning for life to Aristotle’s belief in ultimate end. According to Frankl, meaning in life is not a general term but rather a specific and personal approach. Personally, I agree with the saying that materialism will block meaning, but only if it is a long term. Life differs within moments, so as people’s concrete missions. Money is possibly one of the achievement that people are fighting for during a unique period of time. Yet, beyond all of the meanings, what we will eventually reach is that ultimate end . Whether how many missions that we complete, we are not looking at the past. Instead, we will head off for a better future, and I believe the end of that future is what Aristotle has emphasized — happiness.
According to Frankl, imaginative and creative people were more likely to survive the camps.The mental condition determined the future of a person in a camp as prisoners believed that if you shaved everyday and looked energetic, you would not be killed. In my opinion, the key to survive a camp was not to create but maintain the normal spiritual condition as before. For example, planning the future could help a person survive since most people had expectations for all sorts of things before entering the camp. As Alex says, people might loose their religious belief as time went on in a concentration camp. Such phenomenon proved that the power of a concentration camp on destroying people’s mind. As Frankl said, our body could adjust to the environment just like the gas in a room. A person with creative ideas had the ability of stabilizing their mood and continue to pursue his goal by planning. Due to the ability of human in getting used to the environment, body strength might only help people survive for a short time period. In the Shawshank Redemption, Old Brooks suicide after getting out of the jail; although physically he survived, his spirit was restricted in the prison like the mentally weak people in the concentration camps. Spirit could prevent people from being controlled by their enemies(like pioneers in revolutions). An individual could keep his faith when being tortured, but one who was mentally destroyed would only surrender and perish.
its fascinating to hear what kind of people survived the concentration camp. It seemed to be contrary to science. Darwin’s survival of the fittest would have pointed that imaginative people would have died first. On the contrary, the intellectually rich people were the survivors. However, it is sad that the modern society has lost contact with the importance of the imagination to the point it disgusted Mother Theresa. Mother Theresa looked back at the West and warned them not to judge the poor Calcuttans so quickly when the Westerners are so spiritually poor. The West has gotten more materialistic and less spiritual since Mother Theresa’s time. We see the virtue of our life is making money. We see bravado more superior than intellect. The book encourages us to change our world view.
I was always wondering what the meaning or purpose of my life would be. My friends around me could not give me a satisfying, concrete answer because their answers were either too unserious or too specific. I believed that for human beings as a whole, there was a universal meaning planted within every individual, and I struggled a lot to dig it out, but I failed. Therefore, I strongly agree with Frankl’s opinion that meaning differs from man to man and from time to time since it points out the ultimate mistake of my way of thinking. I should not think of a meaning that is shared by the mankind. No wonders why others cannot give me an answer; meaning is highly individual, and it is to be discovered as one goes through his life, not something that innately exists within a human being. I now think that even if someone goes through his life without discovering the meaning of it, maybe the process of searching for meaning can also be “the meaning” of his life.
I think that it is incredible that Frankl was able to find meaning in his suffering while in the concentration camp. I think it is the only way that someone could survive something like that and come out some what sane. In true suffering, one has to find a purpose for it in order for there life and overall being to make sense. Without purpose or meaning, people have nothing to live for and therefore do not live. I agree with Frankl that everyone is in search of meaning, and I also think that suffering has purpose. Not just meaning that is searched for and found or made up in times of suffering, but the actual suffering plays a role in life. We would not appreciate all the good things in life without the bad and we wouldn’t know happiness without any form of suffering. I am curious though, after watching his clip, as to what kind of traumas still haunt him if any. He seemed so normal and relaxed and full of life but after experiencing his life in the camps and having his entire family killed, I can’t imagine he is completely normal and accepting of his life. I want to know if the camps still trouble him and how he changed from before the camps with a happy family and wife and child on the way to completely alone and traumatized. How could he cope with that?