bobbyfiend

bobbyfiend t1_j08kxtd wrote

Reply to comment by iiioiia in Existence is infinitely richer than our descriptions of it. So, rather than cling to reductive explanations that only ‘close’ life’s possibilities, we should ‘open’ reality by seeing ourselves as perpetual students | Interview with Black Existentialist Lewis Gordon by philosophybreak

That's a hypothesis, for sure. I don't know of any empirical evidence to suggest that the size and shape of the distribution of racism within a given population necessarily stays invariant while the mean changes.

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bobbyfiend t1_j04lfdt wrote

Reply to comment by buddhabillybob in Existence is infinitely richer than our descriptions of it. So, rather than cling to reductive explanations that only ‘close’ life’s possibilities, we should ‘open’ reality by seeing ourselves as perpetual students | Interview with Black Existentialist Lewis Gordon by philosophybreak

>I do, however, wonder how far existentialism is compatible with any form of “identity” in the normal sense of the word.

It works for me. Identity is always (seriously, always) strongly tied in with context/environment/circumstance. Those are filtered through our imperfect perceptions and memories, etc. but they are still there and still very powerful. I don't think any serious existentialist would suggest that everyone can just casually discard their lived experience. It's there, and it shapes identity. True, we have more choices about that than we are often led to believe, but it's not a binary: our context is a powerful force, whether we flow totally with it, try to swim against the current, or try to find some way to zig with/against it orthogonally or whatever. It's there and it will always matter.

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