It quotes Camus, the father of existentialism. It quotes from “The Myth of Sisyphus,” one of the founding texts of existentialism. The invitation to live and create in the desert (e.g. invitation to find your own meaning, responsibility, and personal integrity without a God or without objective meaning in the world) is the existential answer to the desert of nihilism. Frankly, I am not sure how you can think the strip is about anything else. What do you think existentialism is?
A more accurate pithy summary of existentialism is this: “When they realized they were in a desert, they built water condensators out of sand.”
SMBC has also featured a bunch of other strips about existentialism, leading me to suspect he has studied it in some capacity. Notably, here, here, here, here and here.
It quotes Camus, the father of existentialism. It quotes from “The Myth of Sisyphus,” one of the founding texts of existentialism. The invitation to live and create in the desert (e.g. invitation to find your own meaning, responsibility, and personal integrity without a God or without objective meaning in the world) is the existential answer to the desert of nihilism. Frankly, I am not sure how you can think the strip is about anything else. What do you think existentialism is?
A more accurate pithy summary of existentialism is this: “When they realized they were in a desert, they built water condensators out of sand.”
“Beyond the reach of God” is existential.
SMBC has also featured a bunch of other strips about existentialism, leading me to suspect he has studied it in some capacity. Notably, here, here, here, here and here.
http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=1595#comic
That’s relativism, not existentialism. I mean he’s trying to entertain, not be a reliable source about anything. Like wikipedia :).
Yeah, the third one I linked too isn’t really existentialism either now that I think about it...