This clip epitomizes the flaw in Existentialism. A serious thread, believe it or not.

1/ https://twitter.com/lafamiliafilm/status/1217585294465212418

Imagine looking at a page of Chinese characters (assuming you don’t read Chinese) and saying: “Stare at Chinese characters you will see the overwhelming stupidity of the Chinese.” The only stupidity you will be revealing is your own.

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When you look at a phenomenon and see nothing meaningful, let alone intelligent, that could indeed show that there is nothing significant to see, or it could mean that you have not learned to discern the significance.

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Existentialists commit this error when they see life as meaningless. Robert Solomon was the exception. Although himself an Existentialist, he made this same criticism of Camus: if you find life meaningless, that’s a symptom of a defect in your emotions, not in the world.

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As for chickens in particular — Herzog says something similar about bears in his great film, *Grizzly Man* — they are obviously bad at things we are good at, like all animals. But also like animals, they are good at things we are bad at.

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To see them as overwhelmingly stupid because they are different — or to see their gaze as empty and meaningless because you measure their minds by human concerns rather than their own — these are signs not of sagacity but of narcissism.

6/ FIN

BONUS: Credit for this thread goes to my daughter, who has spent enough time with our chickens to teach me about their unique personalities and special talents. I took this photo half an hour ago, while conceiving this thread.