Viktor Frankl
Viktor Frankl, author of "Man's Search for Meaning."
"Only when the emotions work in terms of values can the individual feel pure joy." (Viktor Frankl, The Doctor and the Soul, 1986)
Viktor Frankl died 17 years ago on Sept. 3. At the time of his death, his legacy as a psychotherapist was widely celebrated. His most well-known book, Man's Search for Meaning (1946), pioneered a new approach to understanding the human psyche. The Library of Congress named it one of the 10 most influential books of the 20th century.
With the passage of time, particularly since his death, there's been a growing recognition that Frankl's focus on meaning as the most basic human drive was a powerful corrective to conventional therapeutic ideas. His genius lay in his linkage of emotions and values, and resurrecting the place of values in the task of becoming human. In Frankl's view, we best satisfy the need for meaning when we exercise our freedom to choose the values by which we live. No one, he said, can ever take away our freedom to "choose our way."
It's the choosing of our way, in the form of the values we claim and that claim us, that determines whatever meaning we experience in life. Happiness is the result of wanting what our values require. Frankl viewed such allignment or coherence of emotions and values as the source of authentic joy.
Browse any bookstore's sections on self-help, psychology and moral philosophy and you'll find a plethora of works on happiness, happiness research and the quest for contentment and joy. Subjects like these that once were largely the domain of religious devotional literature are now a mainstream topic of interest. And there's tons of it online as well. Here, for example, is a link to a popular happiness studies site that generously acknowledges Viktor Frankl's contributions fo the field.
In an important sense, then, Frankl brought us full circle, reconnecting us to the basic concern for human happiness and the "good (meaningful) life" that the Greek philosophers sought to understand. I see this, and the continuing rediscovery of his work, as a hopeful thing -- a straw, perhaps, in the unsettling winds of our tumultous times. It represents an abiding universal quest for something that is more basic and more enduring than the disordered conditions and events that beset so much contemporary life.
So, we might well ask: Can ethics save the world? I surmise that Socrates thought as much, or at least implied that recognizing the fundamental role of values in the task of being human was our only realistic hope for meaningful existence. If he was right, we can thank Viktor Frankl for reminding us of that legacy and the urgency of recovering it before it's too late.
Stephen Swecker, a retired United Methodist clergyman and journalist, is The Ethics Coach at Ethics to Go, from whose newsletter this article is reprinted with permission.