BOOK REPORT by MRH (7/13):

“Man’s Search for Meaning” by Victor Frankl

Finding meaning in our prisons

How did anyone survive the Holocaust?  According to reports, only 1 in 28 did. 

But how?

That is the question Victor Frankl seeks to answer in his classic work, “Man’s Search for Meaning.” Frankl was an Austrian psychiatrist who, even as Hitler was centralizing power and threatening the European neighborhood, decided to remain behind to care for his aging parents, prompted by the fifth commandment to honor one’s elders. Victor and his Jewish entire family—including his first wife, Tilly—were ultimately arrested and imprisoned. He was the only one to survive to liberation.

According to Victor’s first-person experience, those who endured to the end of the Holocaust did so by a combination of three factors. First, luck. Nazi guards were wanton in their pronouncements of who lived or died. Second, something like selfishness. (Although that is not quite the word.) Survival required scraping for every bit of bread. By Frankl’s own humble admission, the “best of them” did not make it to the end, but let the more desperate prisoners get the scraps.

But thirdly, those who endured found meaning. In the midst of all the horrors the Nazis concocted in their concentration camps, survivors found something to live for.

“Man’s Search for Meaning” is Frankl’s narrative of his three years in prison and the lessons the more fortunate among us can learn from them—specifically about our search for meaning in our “prisons” of various types.

“Logotherapy” and why you should care

In part one of the book Frankl narrates his time in the concentration camp by describing the three phases inmates experience in camp life: admission, acceptance, and liberation. As inmates are admitted, they are filled with curiosity and horror as their very lives are stripped from them. They accept their reality only by numbing themselves to every emotion they must. And for those that survive to liberation, they can take years to learn to live and feel again.

In part two, he discusses his brand of psychiatry. Frankl calls is “logotherapy,” from the Greek word for “meaning” (logos). While logotherapy did not originate with Frankl in the prison camps, his experiences at Auschwitz and Turkheim gave stark illustration of how people can find meaning in life in the worst imaginable circumstances. In the nihilism (meaninglessness) of the modern era, people can only truly thrive, and perhaps even only survive, by finding meaning in either an important relationship, a task to complete, or suffering that can be understood to be worthwhile.

The book is a classic. You really should read it. Dr. Frankl’s vivid, up-close, first-person description of the daily tortures of the camp is haunting. Words cannot describe, but Frankl’s do.

But it is Dr. Frankl’s perspective as a psychiatrist in the Holocaust that has given his book such a lasting run. As a survivor, Frankl has a unique credibility to derive lessons from his experience. He witnessed countless acts of human courage and cowardice. He wrestled daily with the temptation to give up or fight on. He agonized over opportunities to attempt escape or stay behind with his fellow prisoners. And at the end of it all, he felt a responsibility to humanity to pass on what he learned.

What did he learn? Well, read the book. But chief among those lessons is this: While others can take away everything from us, they cannot take away our ability to choose our reaction to whatever it is we face. Even under the thumb of tyranny, we will always be free. As he puts it so famously: “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”

This can be hard to believe. Even in my safe, middle-class life I often convince myself of the opposite: my hardships require me to be a slave to my circumstances. My life is too hard for me to have joy. But that’s not true. I can choose to react however I want. We all can. Doing so at least gives us a shot at being one of the 28 who make it to the end. 

Two Omissions

I am loath to criticize “Man’s Search for Meaning,” given its status among the greats and the earnestness with which it was penned. But may I?

Frankl carefully avoids several topics that I as a modern Christian would want him to discuss: religion and science, especially. He is aware that many modern scientists would dismiss “meaning” as an evolutionary adaptation that increases our chances of survival. We make meaning out of meaningless events in order to survive, they would say. As he writes, “there are some authors who contend that meanings and values are ‘nothing but defense mechanisms, reaction formatios and sublimations.’” With a wave of his hand, though, he dismisses these arguments: “I would not be willing to live merely for the sake of my ‘defense mechanisms.’”

I agree. But I would also want to hear a man of such expertise engage the research on what modern brain science says about “meaning-making.”

And as far as religion, “Man’s Search for Meaning” is deeply spiritual in a profoundly sincere yet generic, non-sectarian way. As William Winslade comments in the afterward, “Frankl was fond of saying that the aim of psychiatry was the healing of the soul, leaving to religion the salvation of the soul.” This is a noble sentiment that undoubtedly has earned him the respect of so many over the decades. But (and of course I would think this as a Christian preacher), I believe that earthly purpose and spiritual enlightenment cannot be so neatly divided.

For example, Frankl frequently turns the tables on what people are expecting out of life. Why has life not treated us more kindly, we wonder. It’s a fair question, but we might as well ask ourselves, “What is life expecting of us?” We are all responsible to “life” to make a contribution in some way, shape or form. Focusing on what we owe life and others can be a therapeutic tonic helping us out of the trap of self-pity.

I love the point. It challenges me in many ways, helping me focus on what I can do for the world instead of what the world can do for me. Life doesn’t owe me anything. Rather I owe it much.

But what is this “life”? Is “life” capable of “expecting” anything? Replace “life” with something (or someone) capable of “expecting”—like, say, “God”—and we have a ballgame. As it is, Frankl attempts to address deeply religious questions without even acknowledging they are religious questions at all. But he comes up short.

Read It Anyway

These omissions aside, Frankl’s work is still one of the most important books written in the 20th century, and well worth the modest investment of time required by the reader. Thank God we will hopefully never endure what he and so many other millions did. But suffering is real, life is a prison, and Nazis still walk about on patrol. The temptation to give into meaninglessness is all around us, as ubiquitous as razor wire. As Frankl insists, we must not judge those who do so give up. But we can choose whether or not we will.

We can search for meaning, and it can be found.

-MRH (7/13/2019)