Man's Search for Meaning

Based on Viktor Frankl's Man's Search For Meaning, this essay is an examination of the capacity of human beings to hold on to their freedom and find meaning in life, in spite of adverse physiological, social, and psychological conditionings. While reading Frankl's depiction of the traumatic life in a concentration camp, one poses this fundamental question about human existence: how can human beings tolerate this level of degradation without giving up their faith in human freedom and meaning in their lives?

The answer lies within the inner souls of the prisoners who possessed the courage to exercise their freedom and make their own choices when confronted with the nightmarish options available to them. As Frankl points out, even though most of the guards in the camps acted cruelly as they became numbed to the violence around them, there were yet others who salvaged a shred of humanity (106). Amongst the dying prisoners, sunken deep in the throes of their suffering, there were a few who faced their impending death with courage and spiritual peace (89-90).

The passage that captures the essence of Frankl's image of a human being is: "But what about human liberty? Is there no spiritual freedom in regard to any given surroundings� It is this spiritual freedom -- which cannot be taken away -- that makes life meaningful and purposeful" (86-87).

The definition of human freedom that lies at the heart of human existence is encapsulated in this passage. To Frankl,

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this event with humor even while their plight continued. This example also shows the collective vitality of human beings to celebrate life over death. The second selected passage presents the darker side of the way human beings are conditioned sociologically: "The majority of prisoners suffered from a kind of inferiority complex� Whenever the degraded majority and the promoted minority came into conflict (and there were plenty of opportunities for this, starting with the distribution of food) the results were explosive" (83-84). Even among prisoners in a concentration camp without any real possibilities of advancement, there was an intense competition for higher positions of authority, as though they still lived freely in the outside world. This example is a powerful demonstration of the propensity of human beings to assert their place within a sociological structure, regardless of the functions they perform. A prisoner's joke about the Capo, who was once the president of a large bank, is a poignant reflection of this truth (84). Apathy was the primary emotion that ruled the psychological state of the prisoners, as reflected in this moribund example: "I spent some time in a hut for typhus patients who ran very high tempera

Category: Philosophy - M