Description
When did everything get so existential? Novel arguments about living freely amidst social alienation emerged in the early-20th century to grapple with epochal transformations and war. Yet today, many of existentialist patterns of thought and action have evolved to destabilize our life in common while imbuing daily existence with a pervasive sense of dread. Birthed as diagnosis of and antidote to crisis, existentialism ended up convincing many that every uncertainty or difference marks a full-blown existential threat. Drawing on theories of popular culture from within and outwith IR, this paper asks how existentialism turned all our times into existential problems. It begins with existentialists’ own dissemination efforts through novelisation, drama, popular magazine writings, and more. It then charts existentialism’s supernova-like expansion through nearly every genre of popular culture in the latter 20th century. Music, film, television, and literature helped introduce multiple generations to existentialism, but also resulted in the ‘jargonization’ of, among other things, ‘authenticity’ as a check on ’alienation’. This unintended effect transformed the philosophy of freedom in diverse but often perverse ways, as can be seen across right wing, white power, incelibate, climate denying, and conspiracy theory communities, all of which invoke the tropes and logics of existentialism while denying and fomenting moment that threaten our common existence.
