Teller Part 1

"To catch the squirrel, one must become the squirrel."

Existentialist Parking: Nothing Matters

1. "Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And when you look into the abyss, the abyss also looks into you." 
(a) What do you think this means? 
(b) How is it relevant to what we are studying?

2. (a) Interpret the following passage from Kierkegaard. How is it relevant to Camus concern? 

An old proverb fetched from the outward and visible world says: "Only the man that works gets the bread." Strangely enough this proverb does not aptly apply in the world to which it expressly belongs. For the outward world is subjected to the law of imperfection, and again and again the experience is repeated that he too who does not work gets the bread, and the he who sleeps gets it more abundantly than the man who works. In the outward world everything is made payable to the bearer, this world is in bondage to the law of indifference, and to him who has the ring, the spirit of the ring is obedient, whether he be Noureddin or Aladdin, and he who has the world's treasure, has it, however he got it.  (Philistines, Knights of Infinite Resignation and Knights of Faith)

(b) What is the law of indifference? 
(c) How is the law of indifference relevant to children's concerns in the Teller story?
(c) Come up with at least two examples from your own life that illustrate the law of indifference. 




3. (a) What do you think the door represents? (Teller, p. 5, 9)
(b) Read Camus on emotions (Myth of Sisyphus, p. 10). 
(c) Why do the children try to resist going through the door?


4. (a) What does Camus say about the feeling of the absurd?  (Myth of Sisyphus, p. 12) Do you agree? 
(b) How do the children in Teller attempt to respond to the absurd? What do you think of their response?
(c) What, if anything follows from the absurd?



6. On Teller p. 100, Hussein loses his prayer mat and both he and his father are upset. Read the passage below by Kierkegaard. What does it mean? What would Kierkegaard think about Hussein and Hussein's father's reaction. What would Kierkegaard think about the Jesus statue? 

Kierkegaard:

There is a knowledge which would presumptuously introduce into the world of spirit the same law of indifference under which the external world sighs. It counts it enough to think the great--other work is not necessary. But therefore it doesn't get the bread, it perishes in hunger, while everything is transformed into gold. And what does it really know? there were many thousands of Greek contemporaries, and countless numbers in subsequent generations, who knew all the triumphs of Miltiades, but only one was made sleepless by them. There were countless generations which knew by rote, word for word, the story of Abraham--how many were made sleepless by it?

5. (a) What is the pile supposed to represent? Read Frankl passage (Man's Search for Meaning p. 32-37). How is this analogous with the pile? How might the Frankl passage give us hope for an answer to the central problem of existentialism?