A Word for Prioritizing Existence
Essentialist Crisis • (es-sens-shuh-list kry-sis) • phrase
Definition: A crisis of essence, not existence
Origin: The Sustainable Culture Lab
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About a month ago, I was a guest speaker for a university course and one of the students asked me if the phrase “existential crisis” still had any meaning. My talk was about the importance of language and I used this phrase many times in reference to climate change and systemic racism, but it is used so frequently that people tend to doubt the legitimacy of each “crisis.” The student’s question was a good one, but in order to provide my answer, I needed to go back and re-examine ethnocide.
When Europeans commenced ethnocide via the transatlantic slave trade, they felt justified in destroying the culture of African people because they believed that Europeans possessed a superior humanity. Their perspective was not based on facts, but just an absurd idea from their minds. From the philosophy of René Descartes who came up with the famous phrase “I think, therefore I am,” we would call this European belief in their own supremacy as their “essence.” An essence can be any idea or affiliation that helps define you or give you purpose, such as “I am a journalist” or “I am a good friend.” An essence is not inherently bad until it is prioritized ahead of “existence.” “I think, therefore I am” implied that thoughts allegedly gave people life and preceded existence, which encouraged Europeans to prioritize their essence before their existence and the existence of others.
Under this school of thought, an “unthinking” non-European person did not need to exist, and any connection to a “thinking” European would be an elevation of their existence. Colonizers had an ideology that encouraged the destruction of existence in order to spread European ideas, and America is built upon this chaos.
Since America is built around legitimizing and sustaining white essence, the idea of an existential crisis will ring hollow because America devalues existence. Instead, America will have a constant crisis of its essence -- an “essentialist crisis” -- as existence challenges or makes Americans question the legitimacy of dangerous ideas built upon white essence.
So to answer the student’s question, “existential crisis” still has meaning but we need to make sure we use the phrase solely to describe a crisis of existence and not one of essence.
Democracy vs. American Essence
Ever since Joe Biden became president-elect, Donald Trump and his sycophants in the Republican Party denied the legitimacy of the election results and concocted absurd theories of voter fraud and violations of the U.S. constitution in attempts to keep Trump in the White House. We are witnessing a petulant and sad essentialist crisis from the GOP.
Trump has an idea, image, and essence of self that proclaims that he is a “winner.” Defeat is an impossibility in the mind of Trump, so being forced to confront the reality of his defeat creates a crisis. Trump’s essence is being challenged, and as an American, he is accustomed to valuing essence more than existence. If sustaining his essence requires the dismantling of our democracy, then he will take apart our democracy. Trump’s existence is not being threatened, but his essence is, and he values his essence more than existence.
As Trump insanely battles to sustain his essence, many Americans wonder how the Republican Party can continue to support him. One argument is that Republicans need the support of Trump’s voters (and there is some truth to this argument), but the tragic reality is that the GOP also prioritizes essence ahead of existence.
Compared to Democrats, Republicans are far more likely to consider their party affiliation as part of their identity. Yet in politics, a political identity only matters or can exist if it has influence, so the prospect of no longer being influential could end the existence of their party. An end of Republican authority has now become an essentialist crisis for those who identify as Republican. Additionally, many of the people who have a Republican essence also have a white essence, and the growing social, cultural, and political influence of communities of color creates an essentialist crisis for two of the main essences they depend on for their identity.
This anxiety, or angest, around the fragility of their essence can create panic as they become increasingly prone to sacrificing existence to save their essence. This is why our democracy is under attack.
COVID-19 vs. American Essence
Jean-Paul Sartre forged Existentialism from the deadly chaos of World War II, when man-made destruction threatened the existence of Europeans, so an existential crisis is not supposed to be an abstract idea. Americans are prone to interpreting an existential crisis in the abstract because we conflate a crisis of existence with a crisis of essence.
COVID-19 is an existential crisis because it threatens our existence. If you do not take the necessary precautions, COVID-19 can kill you. America has struggled to adequately deal with COVID-19 because too many Americans value their essence over their existence, which is why this deadly virus can easily be labeled as “a hoax” or whatever the mind decides. There is a near-total disconnect from existence because an actual existential crisis might shatter one’s idea of self, supremacy, or freedom.
Americans will refrain from wearing masks because their idea of what their daily lives should look like struggles to imagine how to make this adjustment. The reality of a deadly pandemic now challenges their idea, or essence, of American freedom. Their insane logic now equates safety measures necessary for sustaining existence, as tyranny and oppression.
Existential philosopher Albert Camus’ book The Plague speaks to this insanity, and unsurprisingly it became very popular earlier this year.
Today, America’s problematic cultural narrative that depends on legitimizing and sustaining white essence is under attack by the simple truth that non-white people are equally human and that deadly diseases can exist on the planet. America’s linguistic void is so severe that we actually lack the language for these basic truths. As we try to name this reality, we far too often use the phrase “existential crisis,” and by using the language of existence to articulate a crisis of essence, we erode the meaning of “existential crisis” every time we say it. To fix this problem, we need to create new concepts and accurate phrases, and “essentialist crisis” can be one of them.
