Easy Chair No. 138, January the 3rd, 1987

R.J. Rushdoony and Otto Scott examine the cultural and philosophical climate of the 20th century, focusing on existentialism and its pervasive influence. Existential philosophy, originating with Kierkegaard and popularized in the U.S. through Emerson, emphasizes living for the moment, personal experience, and the negation of objective truth or moral absolutes. Rushdoony notes that modern man increasingly mirrors the limited temporal perspective of “savages,” living in the present with little regard for the past or future, which manifests in short-term thinking in politics, media, and everyday life. The discussion highlights the moral consequences of existentialism in culture and the arts. Figures like Sartre, de Beauvoir, Genet, Camus, and Polanski exemplify a system where personal experience and notoriety outweigh ethical conduct. Artistic acclaim and intellectual respectability often reward contempt for traditional values and embrace of evil or immorality as “new good.” Rushdoony and Scott link this to media, theater, and entertainment, showing a pervasive drive for continual sensation, visual shock, and superficiality that undermines historical awareness, thoughtful engagement, and enduring meaning. Existentialism has also infiltrated the Church, seminaries, and education, producing a focus on personal experience over objective truth and a repudiation of serious moral or historical reflection. Rushdoony observes that this leads to infantilization, self-centeredness, and a collapse of communal and intergenerational wisdom. The resulting culture elevates triviality and egoism, prioritizes sensation over continuity, and fosters widespread moral and intellectual disorientation—what Scott describes as a society in which life itself has become a theatrical spectacle, leaving citizens trapped in perpetual “no exit” existentialism, oblivious to God and moral reality.