The Meaning Of Life?

2005 marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of the noted Austrian psychologist Victor Frankl. The late Dr. Frankl established a school of thought which maintained that the desire for meaning acts as humanity’s primary motivating force. His technique of “logotherapy” sought to treat certain forms of depression by helping the depressed to fill the “existential vacuum” in their lives. His birth’s centennial has invigorated the efforts of different groups attempting to complete a project initially proposed by Frankl: the construction of a “Statue of Responsibility.”

Frankl believed that responsibility constituted the very “essence of existence.” He taught that people ought not to concern themselves with their expectations of life, but rather with life’s expectations of them. When questioned, so to speak, by life, they could only answer for themselves through responsible behavior. By responding responsibly to their individual circumstances, they thereby actualized the unique meaning of their lives. Frankl left it to individuals to determine the appropriate object of their responsibility, though he identified conscience, family, society, and God as possibilities.

Frankl’s work had political as well as psychological dimensions. In his seminal 1959 book Man’s Search For Meaning, Frankl wrote, “Freedom is only part of the story and half of the truth. Freedom is but the negative aspect of the whole phenomenon whose positive aspect is responsibility. That is why I recommend that the Statue of Liberty on the East Coast be supplemented by a Statue of Responsibility on the West Coast.” This observation demonstrates penetrating insight into not merely the human condition in general, but into America’s unique political heritage.

The political philosophy which so influenced America’s founders had a negative concept of liberty - not negative in the sense of bad or harmful, but in the sense of involving absence. Classical liberals such as John Locke believed that freedom entails the absence of coercion. One person’s freedom ends when it infringes on the life, liberty, or property of someone else. A government exercises force only to protect those rights from violation. This view of freedom gave rise to classical liberalism’s distinction between the moral and the legal. Governments, like citizens, may persuasively promote virtue, but immorality falls within the government’s legislative purview only so much as it involves the infringement of life, liberty, and property.

Nonetheless, the concerns of a nation exceed the jurisdiction of its government. For a society to survive, a critical mass of its population must behave in a moral fashion. In a country with a classical liberal heritage, the citizens must take up that responsibility voluntarily. Thomas Jefferson declared that “we have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. . . . Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” Liberty can only endure in conjunction with responsibility, and where responsibility fails, so too ultimately will liberty. Victor Frankl understood this principle, and his recommendation draws attention to its importance.

The Statue of Responsibility Foundation and The Statue of Responsibility Endowment stand out most prominently among the no less than seven organizations and individuals currently laboring on Frankl’s vision. Daniel Boltz, president of the Foundation, has stated that “the Statue of Responsibility, as a companion to Lady Liberty, would spark a national dialogue on the intrinsic worth of both. It will result in more responsible actions, personally and collectively, toward each other, our neighbors on the planet, and our common home - the Earth.” Whether or not such a statue would actually accomplish all this, it certainly would draw attention to the neglected but necessary counterpoint of the freedom Americans so cherish.