Are You Serious?

In all honesty, I’m in the middle of a total philosophical fascination with existential philosopher and writer Simone de Beauvoir (1908-1986). Her exploration of what it means to exist, and how we experience that as people is both wide-reaching, cutting, deep, and precise.

In her book The Ethics of Ambiguity she looks at what it means to be free as a person, to express this freedom through the pursuits and choices of our life, and some of the different ways we react to our freedom.

I want to look at a way that we can tend to try to give up our freedom that Beauvoir describes in her book and that I notice often in clients.

Beauvoir calls this reaction to freedom “the serious man”.

To start with, Beauvoir as an existentialist believes that there isn’t pre-determined meaning in the world for us to discover, but that we are free in our existence to create the meaning of the world - that this is our freedom.

For her, values are not objective, universal absolutes that we have to learn and follow, but that we are the ones that create values in the world, and the ones who give these values meaning.

One reaction to this ambiguous situation, however, is to instead believe that values are “ready-made things”. Someone who takes on this “serious man” position gives up the freedom, and the stress this freedom entails, of creating value and meaning themselves. Instead, they take on values created by others, or by society, and then treat those values as if they are unconditioned, or absolute. 

Beauvoir sees this as involving a kind of dishonesty, in that it’s still freely choosing a way of making meaning and value, but doing so in a way that denies that this is the case. She likens it to reading a love-letter that you forgot you sent to yourself. It didn’t come from somewhere else - you did it!

On top of being dishonest, she sees this “serious” approach as potentially dangerous. Because someone in this position is denying their ability to choose value and meaning, but is instead acting as if values are universal and simply expressed through them, they tend to view others in the same light. In other words, they also tend to deny the ability of others to choose value and meaning, and are then willing to subject others to the values that the serious man thinks are absolute.

Let’s make this more specific.

I often see a version of this “serious man” approach (in clients of any gender, by the way), through the assumption of there being a right way to do things or a right way to be.

This assumption of there being a right way is itself an attempt at finding these ready-made, absolute, unconditioned values. It displays a belief that values are external and objective, rather than subjectively created and given meaning by us as people.

I see some clients treat rationality as if it’s an absolute value, and then beat themselves up, as well as judge others, according to that same belief. (“Why am I not acting rationally? What’s wrong with me? Why aren’t they acting rationally? What’s wrong with them?”)

I see some clients treat their own ideas of perfection as if it’s an absolute value, again beating themselves up and judging others by that standard. (“I’m too _____.” “I’m not _____ enough.” “They’re too ____.” “They’re not ____ enough.”)

I see some clients treat cultural ideas of what it means to be “a man” or “a woman” as if it’s an absolute value, and again beat themselves up or judge others by those standards. (“A real man does ____.” “A real man doesn’t ____.” “I’m a failure as a man/woman.”)

It’s not uncommon for therapy to start off with a client coming to me as if I’m the expert on the real answers for what’s actually objectively or absolutely the right way, that I can then teach them.

At some point, I have to admit to clients that I do not hold the answers to the universe, and in fact don’t believe the universe has answers to find, but instead asks us to express our freedom in the creation of our answers through our choices.

It’s a bit of a bait-and-switch, but not intentionally. I’m not sure who’s going around telling people that therapy is about an expert giving you answers about how you’re supposed to feel or direct your life. 

Instead, I am happy to help my clients experiment with an entirely different view: That no one has lived their life before, and so they get to express freedom themselves in the creation of value and meaning through their life choices. What a gift both to themselves, and to those around them! Not only do they get to give themselves the gift of recognizing existential freedom, but they also show us all as humanity what’s possible.

By their example they are showing others, not the “right” way to do things, but another way to do things among infinite ways. When they discover what works for them, this possibility can provide another example for others trying to still discover what works for them as well.

My clients are the experts, each the expert on what it means to live their life, to create meaning, and to be truly free.

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