Lawyers and politicians are often accused of “blowing smoke.” Which means they talk in circles or use words that sound erudite, but no one really understands. All with the hope of diverting the listeners attention away from a serious concern. Sometimes, they like to explain away difficult situations by saying something is an “existential” crisis. Existential is Biden’s favorite word. But does anyone know what it actually means ?
Why couldn’t he simply say, “The Afghan people are scared to death they’re going to get killed by the Taliban? ” Yeah, they’ve got an existential crisis, all right. Many of us have existential problems. Like, when your house goes up in flames, or you get hit by a train. You start to wonder if you’re going to keep on living. If you survive, someone may ask how you’re doing. Would you say you’re going through hell? Or simply respond that you’re having an existential crisis?
Actually, I think Biden copied the expression from Obama. As an example, in a 2014 speech to West Point Graduates. Obama said “We don’t face an existential crisis, We don’t face a civil war. We don’t face a Soviet Union that is trying to rally a bloc of countries that could threaten our way of life.”
That sounded fairly impressive. Very intellectual –calm, cool and collected. It must have been reassuring to the people in the audience. . Only things didn’t turn out so well, since our country has been on the brink of a civil war for the past few years.
Overall, I think the expression is used in an effort to gloss things over. We unenlightened human beings are admonished not to worry—it’s just an existential crisis. Which means there’s nothing can be done. The ultimate cop out.
Existential is a pretty hi-falutin word . If you look it up on the internet, you’ll see it has different meanings. While it’s defined as a concern about existence, it’s also described as: ” a chiefly 20th century philosophical movement embracing diverse doctrines but centering on analysis of individual existence in an unfathomable universe, and the plight of the individual who must assume ultimate responsibility for acts of free will without any certain knowledge of what is right or wrong or good or bad.”
Confused? No wonder existential is Biden’s favorite word.