There are two kinds of people in the world – those who ask questions and those who seek the answers. There are people who ask why sea levels rise and fall; and there are those who pick up books and say, head bobbing in understanding, “Ah, it’s because of the moon’s gravitational pull!” In Victor Frankl’s account of the camp life in Auschwitz, Man’s Search for Meaning, he likewise distinguished between men who question life and demand meaning, and men he considers heroic for letting life question them that they may look for the answers – the meaning – themselves.
The search for meaning however remains out of man’s reach. And so, Frankl’s relates a factual story of extremism. Humans born of common, ordinary circumstances cannot be expected to produce in themselves more than what is, by nature, their due. They do not push to the limit, because it is not needed and simply because doing so causes displeasure. It is, after all, also human nature to have a share of hedonism. But in the case of a man, thrown in a camp where he is forced to abandon all hedonistic notions and struggle not only for survival but for the very will to survive as well, there comes a change in pattern. In the extreme circumstance, an opportunity arises to make something deemed out of reach be in arm’s length.
In Man’s Search for Meaning, Auschwitz is depicted as nothing less than extreme. Like other camps built at that time, it contained facilities that were made to hold a lot less people than they actually did; it enforced hard labor in the most arduous environment and conditions; it provided food and nutrition that could barely keep small animals alive, much less humans; and it housed a number of sadistic guards that punish for the sake of punishment. It did stand out among others, however, because of its reputation for having gas chambers and crematoriums, which never failed to further instill fear in the unfortunate Jewish prisoners.
As one of the survivors of that camp, Victor Frankl personally experienced the harshness of camp life and he now recalls it both subjectively and objectively to give his readers a glimpse, if not an understanding of their history. Amidst the suffering, the extremeness of it all, comes the opportunity to finally grasp the meaning of life. On the road to that epiphany, the path is split. Picking either way would cause them suffering. Both roads lead to an uncertain ending. The entire ordeal is uncertain, played almost cruelly by luck and fate. The only certainty there is that they have to go either way, and the decision on which to pursue is theirs, and theirs alone.
One of the paths is laid out for the “questioners”. They constantly demanded reason for the injustice of their circumstance. They suffered and complained about it, asking “Why me?” or “Do I deserve this?” and “What is there to live for when all life gives me is suffering?” These questions were evoked, but none of them were answered. And so, after the bitterness, anger and unresolved questions, hope was lost. They gave up. They succumbed to the wretched life designed by their environment, where there is apathy and an ultimate loss of values and existence. And with that, the meaning of life escaped the palm of their hands.
The second path is for the “seekers”. Indeed, they questioned the injustice of it all, but they were not passive receptors to the shaping of the environment. Instead of moping, they made full use of the opportunity given to them. They seized the chance of gaining a greater sense of spirituality, a deeply rooted awareness of morality, an aesthetical appreciation of art in nature, a genuine understanding and commitment to love and an indestructible will to survive any how with a why, as Nietzsche had put it, regardless of whatever that why is. More importantly, they took the opportunity to listen to life and let it define itself, its meaning, through the experiences they underwent. They did what life expected of them – to move forward and simply live.
Frankl, biased as he may be to his own morals and beliefs, did not ignore the flaws in those “seekers”. These people were not gloriously perfect and righteous. In some ways they were like the “questioners”. They were times when they strayed from the road, halted or took a few steps back. They are after all human. They fell prey to apathy and to selfishness, including Frankl himself as he wrote his account as the doctor who had to watch people die and not care. These are merely products of adaptation. It is humans’ natural instinct to adjust to their environment in order to protect themselves both physically and mentally. Other defense mechanisms came in the form of regression, fantasies, alcohol, nicotine and suicide. They directly contradict the notion of keeping moral values and sanity, but the body demands and the mind pressures people to resort to such things if those are what kept them alive. They provided a few seconds of relief, short and temporary, but it helped ease things which in turn contributed to their survival. Once again, the role of the environment comes upfront in shaping people. The difference here is that the shaping was limited. It could only go so far. Humans are forced by instinct and environment but they still have the choice on whether to comply to or go against it. There may be moments of indifference and even violence, but humanity still dominated. The apathy exhibited by Frankl’s case was overturned during the night of his would-be escape, when he chose to stay behind to care for a dying typhus patient. That makes all the difference.
The lives of the Auschwitz prisoners describe the journey of the “questioners” and “seekers” pushed to the extreme. Those who questioned life for meaning were denied and became hopeless. It had a domino effect. First came the mind and then the body. On the other hand, those who sought meaning for life were given the why to carry on.
The transitions gone through by the prisoners of the concentration camps not only told their struggle of survival but also their encounter with meaning. Through the initial shock, blind optimism, longing, disgust, violence, indifference and bitterness, they could and did come out intact.
The world may never fully take hold of the hope and hopelessness brought upon by the dark era of the Holocaust. Although their fate is that which one would not wish upon himself, it gave the right contrast that gives man the chance of appreciation. The flame of a candle is brighter in stark darkness. The flowers smell more fragrant after a stench. Life becomes more meaningful after suffering. It is ironic to think that man must lose before he wins. Then again, wars are not separated into allies and enemies; imprisonment into captives and guards; and men into good and evil. These things are not contradictions. They are causations.
Life necessitates suffering as much as it requires meaning. Meaning can be achieved through the suffering. The choice is left to man. This is where the road splits. This is where the journey for man’s most important search begins.
~This is a review on the first chapter of Man’s Search for Meaning by Victor Frankl.
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