You Can Have a Great Life! But Only if You're a Wealthy White Man

Alright, so perhaps the title is a little cynical, but I have been having some major problems with all this existentialist theory. We all die in the end, that much I buy. But that's about where I draw the line with existentialism. Can I really believe that acknowledging that life is made up of meaningless suffering will make me the freest person ever? No. Is that because I'm a woman? Maybe!

I think it is extremely elitist to say that merely accepting your fate will make it better. Take Sisyphus, for example. Camus claims he was the happiest man to ever exist simply because he understood that his fate was filled with suffering, so now he could be free. On a more mortal level, the logic is that if we understand that all of our lives kind of stink for no reason and that all the social institutions familiar to us merely try to cover that, then we can be free to be whoever we want to be.

I would be surprised if Camus could look in the face of a Syrian refugee mother (hypothetically, of course) and tell her that if she accepts that her life and the lives of her children are all absurdly horrible, then they are truly free from any pain and misery. Make your own choices! Fly away if you want to!

Maybe I am misunderstanding existentialism. Maybe there is some profound explanation that Camus would throw at me, and I would fall at the feet of all existential philosophers. But Camus is dead, and my understanding of this theory is that it is a privileged one. I'm not saying I can even begin to understand oppression; I am a white girl from River Forest. But I know stories of the prejudice people have faced, and I could not even begin to imagine telling them that they should just accept the absurdity of their fate in order to be free from all their suffering. I mean, could you?