Subtle Success Bias In The Book: Man's Search For Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl

ESSENCE OF BOOK: 

"Life remains potentially meaningful under any conditions, even those which are most miserable."

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: 

Viktor E. Frankl(1905 – 1997), was an Austrian neurologist, psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor who devoted his life understanding about “meaning of life”. 

A BRIEF OUTLINE:

Book consist of two parts. First part describes author's experiences in Nazi concentration camps. This part divides life of Nazi camp prisoners in three phases; 

• Entry in camp: characterised by shock
• Accepting the camp life: characterised by Apathy(mostly)
• The liberation: which surprises the liberated person by not meeting upto the expectations he picturised during camp life

In Second part the author describes the "logotherapy" by using his experiences in camp life. Here the language becomes quite technical due to use of medical terminologies and general audience may find it slightly uneasy to read.

FINDING MEANING OF LIFE: THE LOGOTHERAPY

Recalling his life in Auschwitz concentration camp Frankl tried to understand why some people gave up and perished while others survived when conditions were similalry miserable for both categories. Yes, physical abilities differs with person to person, but there was no direct relation between physical strength of survivors and non survivors. Many of the weaker ones lived to tell their story, while stronger ones gave up and never saw the dawn of freedom again. He reached to the conclusion that those who gave up had lost the driving force to go through one of the most brutal living conditions, this driving force is what he called "meaning of life". He studied reasons behind loss of the meaning in people's lives and suggested various approaches to rediscover it. This led to foundation of the new domain: Logotherapy

As per the author, the meaning can be anything like hope to see your loved one again, fulfilling your career related dreams, or publishing your potentially path-breaking science paper(as it was in Frankl's case), or even a religious belief. There is no universal definition of the meaning and it is specific to individual's circumstances. He quote following line from philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche to support his theory;

“He who has a Why to live for can bear almost any How.” 

 

Book asserts that concept of meaning not just applies to grave situations like surviving a holocaust, it is equally relevant in mundane struggles of our daily lives. The author says that forces beyond our control can take away everything we possess except freedom to choose how we will respond to the situation. Thus responsibility is at the core of "Logotherapy". He emphasises that the true meaning of life is to be discovered in the outside world rather than within man or his own psyche,  “the self-transcendence of human existence”, he calls it.

It has been clarified in the second part that lack of meaning should not be confused with traditional psychogenic neuroses. Rather it is Noögenic Neuroses: which is caused by existential issues and problems with will to meaning, unlike psychological neurosis, which is psychological conflict, or conflict between the conscious and unconscious level of one’s mind.

Frankl brings a case of a therapist trying to convince a man that his frustration at work stemmed from an unconscious conflict with his father, when in fact the man was frustrated simply because it wasn’t the right place for him, and once he left his job he was happier.

Author also seems to be missing no opportunity of refuting Sigmund Freud. He refers to following statement by Freud:

Let one attempt to expose a number of the most diverse people uniformly to hunger. With the increase of the imperative urge of hunger all individual differences will blur, and in their stead will appear the uniform expression of the one unstilled urge.”

 

 On this the author says, "His(Freud's) subjects lay on a couch designed in the plush style of Victorian culture, not in the filth of Auschwitz" , and explains that instead of blurring, individual differences became more evident in misery of camp life. Many even resorted to cannibalism, while others remained balanced and cooperative. People unmasked themselves, both the swines and the saints, he writes.

SUBTLE SUCCESS BIAS IN THE BOOK:

I see "finding meaning of life" as euphemism for "learn to cope as you have no choice". Book says that even if suffering is inevitable, why to give up and disappear in oblivion without going through complete "adventure". Those who didn't survived has been subtly portrayed as failure in term of finding 'meaning of life'.

Based on the book it would not be wrong to say that humans are puppets of 'don't know what'. Accept the portion of fate which you can't change, find an excuse to justify it, and just go through it! This is what logotherapy is in a nutshell, which if expressed in fancy words of therapists will appear quite aesthetic and something like a treatment system.

Author suggests of using beliefs of religious people in finding meaning of life. But reality is we don't know about any entity which can be held accountable for what humans have to go through, if you are a religious person, you can only find "excuses" for your sufferings using karma etc, but can't ask your supreme god to compensate or fix it. Once again only option is to COPE. If you are an atheist you may consider to idolize and get motivated by thoughts of some "great thinkers". You suffer and you justify it using mystic ideas, philosophies, theologies, etc.

As per author if one's child is suffering from paralysis, he should be thankful for having one! One looses their legs in accident, be thankful that person is alive! One suffered financial loss and have to beg for living, be thankful he has hands for begging...and so on.

Based on some of examples of treating people using Logotherapy that author gave, to me it appears like developing ability to keep yourself in falsehood of shallow hopes. For instance, he suggests a women who had a paralysed child, to imagine what if she didn't had a child at all! As per author, after imagining this, the women understood value of having a "paralysed" child atleast and got rid of her suicidal thought. Great.  He writes, Imagine first that the present is past and, second, that the past may yet be changed and amended.

But this is shallow, and unconvincing, and a blatant lie to oneself. Bitter truth is that child is paralyzed, and this is not good. That's it. To bear with child is bravery of the women, but certainly nothing to be proud of or to see it as reason to live. But presence or absence of this bravery should not become criteria to judge someone. In such extreme situations, life is miserable, and going through it or giving up: both are equal choices in my view. There is no achievement in going through misery, no matter what hope or constructed and uncertain lie you are driven by.

This may sound pessimistic or broken but I am not. Actually unlike author has done in this book, I am not adamant to declare all those who didn't chose to suffer or lost balance as swine and those who did as saints. I respect both approaches as a natural response by a living being, and I reject any attempt to declare one of them as better or default one. Doing so is nothing but bias in favour of people who do not choose to go through misery. Keyword is "choosing". Even if someone is giving up, they are choosing it. 

Instead I believe in simply fighting until I can, without constructing a lie and thinking of it as "meaning to live". This is ridiculous for me. Still if anyone find the logo-therapy helpful they should go for it. I don't intend to ridicule other's approach or convince them to think like myself. This is my personal view. Anything which improves your well being without harming others, is good for you