Comment: Viktor E. Frankl - Man's Search for Meaning.

 

Decades ago, my sociology teacher in high school (extra reading) handed me Man's Search for Meaning. He said, "I know you have a big load; take the time to read this small volume...it just may change your life." I read through the text at seventeen and remember the sadism and cruelty of the concentration camp guards and the intense suffering these men, women, and children experienced. This began my proper antiwar stance....all wars. Yet, rereading the text so many years later, it felt like a different book. So many years ago, I missed the doctor's central points. 

The notion of pure evil and the "banality of evil" is described by philosopher Hannah Arendt writes:

Evil comes from a failure to think. It defies thought, for as soon as thought tries to engage itself with sin and examine its origins' premises and principles, it is frustrated because it finds nothing there. That is the banality of evil.
― Hannah Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil.

Frankl's descriptions of his experiences in the concentration camps are horrific. But as he says in the 1992 Edition Preface:

I had wanted simply to convey to the reader by concrete example that life holds a potential meaning under any conditions, even the most miserable ones.

These "concrete examples" reveal the cruelty and utter sadism of man's inhumanity to man. There have been many accounts of the Nazi atrocities inflicted on Jews during WWII. Frankl, though, in Part One, needed to relive these moments to describe his psychology and philosophy on suffering and one's individual realization of meaning in his life through hell. 

There are two instances where Frankl found some relief through the violence laid upon him and his fellow comrades. Walking in 2-degree snow and wind without any shoes. Once working on some railroad, he spotted a young bird standing on a pile of dirt, staring directly at him. This followed an intense inner vision of his beloved wife. Where he would talk to her and receive answers about life. 

One's inner life, dreams, and memories help one survive this hell, but early in the text, Frankl realized it is love for one's beloved, a deep, universal love that pushed him through the continuous torture. The vision of his beloved wife was more real than reality. This was the turning point in his efforts to survive the camps. 

Summarizing Part Two of the text is unnecessary because the experience of reading his psychology as an individual is essential. We all have different lives, and what you take away from the text is yours and yours alone.

Rereading a text that was read decades ago will seem to be an entirely different book.

Man's Search for Meaning should be on every school reading list in English and literature.