My friend Don sent me a link to the late, Dr Hazel Barnes‘ TV show from the early 1960s, “Self Encounter: A Study in Existentialism.” I started watching it while recovering from COVID. The pace of the series is clearly of a different era, yet both in look & feel and substance communicate so much. It’s worth a watch… and if you don’t want to invest in the whole of the series, consider just the Introduction. Dr. Barnes begins the series by saying:
“Existentialism is both a philosophy and a mood. As a mood, I think we could say that it is the mood of the twentieth century — or, at least, of those people in the twentieth century who are discontent with things as they are. It expresses the feeling that, somehow or other, all of those systems — whether they be social, psychological, or scientific — which have attempted to define and explain and determine man, have somehow missed the living individual person.”
DR. Hazel Estella Barnes
Timestamps of the ten episodes:
- 00:00:00 – Being and Nothingness
- 00:29:29 – The Far Side of Despair
- 00:59:05 – To Leap or Not To Leap
- 01:29:00 – Bad Faith
- 01:58:26 – Hell Is Others
- 02:29:15 – A Psychology of Freedom
- 02:57:34 – Responsible Freedom
- 03:27:00 – Engaged Freedom
- 03:57:40 – All Men Are Mortal
- 04:26:13 – Sin Without God
Peace, dwight
