Page 229 - DENG402_HISTORY_OF_ENGLISH_LITERATURE

History of English Literature

Notes of anything that predetermines one to either throw oneself off or to stand still, and one experiences
one’s own freedom.
It can also be seen in relation to the previous point how angst is before nothing, and this is what
sets it apart from fear which has an object. While in the case of fear, one can take definitive
measures to remove the object of fear, in the case of angst, no such “constructive” measures are
possible. The use of the word “nothing” in this context relates both to the inherent insecurity
about the consequences of one’s actions, and to the fact that, in experiencing one’s freedom as
angst, one also realizes that one will be fully responsible for these consequences; there is no
thing in a person (their genes, for instance) that acts in their stead, and that they can “blame” if
something goes wrong.
Not every choice is perceived as having dreadful possible consequences (and, it can be claimed,
human lives would be unbearable if every choice facilitated dread), but that doesn’t change the
fact that freedom remains a condition of every action.

Did u know? One of the most extensive treatments of the existentialist notion of Angst is
found in Soren Kierkegaard’s monumental work Begrebet Angest.

30.4.4 Freedom

The existentialist concept of freedom is often misunderstood as a sort of liberum arbitrium
where almost anything is possible and where values are inconsequential to choice and action.
This interpretation of the concept is often related to the insistence on the absurdity of the world
and the assumption that there exist no relevant or absolutely good or bad values. However, that
there are no values to be found in the world in-itself does not mean that there are no values: We
are usually brought up with certain values, and even though we cannot justify them ultimately,
they will be “our” values.
In Kierkegaard’s Judge Vilhelm’s account in Either/Or, making choices without allowing one’s
values to confer differing values to the alternatives, is, in fact, choosing not to make a choice —
to flip a coin, as it were, and to leave everything to chance. This is considered to be a refusal to
live in the consequence of one’s freedom; an inauthentic existence. As such, existentialist freedom
isn’t situated in some kind of abstract space where everything is possible: since people are free,
and since they already exist in the world, it is implied that their freedom is only in this world,
and that it, too, is restricted by it.
What is not implied in this account of existential freedom, however, is that one’s values are
immutable; a consideration of one’s values may cause one to reconsider and change them. A
consequence of this fact is that one is not only responsible for one’s actions, but also for the
values one holds. This entails that a reference to common values doesn’t excuse the individual’s
actions: Even though these are the values of the society the individual is part of, they are also
her/his own in the sense that she/he could choose them to be different at any time. Thus, the
focus on freedom in existentialism is related to the limits of the responsibility one bears as a
result of one’s freedom: the relationship between freedom and responsibility is one of
interdependency, and a clarification of freedom also clarifies that for which one is responsible.

30.4.5 Facticity
A concept closely related to freedom is that of facticity, a concept defined by Sartre in Being and
Nothingness as that “in-itself” of which humans are in the mode of not being. This can be more
easily understood when considering it in relation to the temporal dimension of past: One’s past
is what one is in the sense that it co-constitutes oneself. However, to say that one is only one’s
past would be to ignore a large part of reality (the present and the future), while saying that one’s
past is only what one was would entirely detach it from them now. A denial of one’s own

222 LOVELY PROFESSIONAL UNIVERSITY