Many of us expect better opportunities to emerge beginning in just 63 days. Our great expectations surrounding President Biden’s inauguration are embraced by positives, yet tinged with some trepidation. After all, #45’s bacchanal has 62 days remaining and tetchy Mitch will likely continue to be running the Senate.
Fortunately, Joe Biden already has
been operating in many ways as our acting president (without portfolio), while
#45 remains in his bunker at 1600 spouting dystopian fantasies and playing mulligan
mini-golf. Irony abounds as our nation’s most presidential person is now resides
in Delaware. Such is the yin and yang of this post-election’s politics.
The president and his craven
sycophants have all too successfully and fraudulently branded Dems as
socialists and defunders of police. The Repubs have gained 8 members in the
House; giving the Dems the slimmest House majority in 20 years; and have an
uphill battle on January 5 to gain a one-person edge in the Senate.
Nevertheless, I doggedly remain an optimista.
These times, especially involving
the coronavirus’ increasing onslaught, have brought forward several examples of
inflation. No, not the economic kind when overall prices rise. We thankfully haven’t
seen noteworthy price inflation since 2014.
The inflation I am referring to is
linguistically based and cannot be remedied by any action of the Federal
Reserve. Nope, it’s emanating from the fingertips of media writers.
I have noticed an increasing use
of two words, “existential” and “exponential” to describe what’s been happening
here in the land of the free and home of the brave. These words often explain two
inter-related events, the covid-19 pandemic and the November election.
After their common first two
letters, the words diverge into very different realms. The rising use of both of these
words has been initiated because of their connotative values which refer to
emotional or cultural associations that the word carries, in addition to its
literal meaning. I’ll first take a tour of existential.
Existential. Existential can be defined as relating to, or
affirming existence; grounded in existence or the experience of existence. Its
connotative value often refers to a negative feeling or event, like existential
angst, dread, crisis, threat or challenge. The use of existential essentially magnifies
the feeling, angst or crisis beyond a simple, every-day ordinary one.
We have been enduring a large
number of non-ordinary events and feelings. Thus, it’s not surprising that
existential’s use has climbed more than 120%, according to Google.
The ghastly coronavirus crisis and
the fraught presidential election each have offered media doyens much
opportunity to describe a variety of events as existential. Before and after
the election existential has been used to portray crises, political
disagreements, terror and issues. A small and totally-unscientific sample of
articles where authors have employed existential to describe terror, fights and
issues includes this one,
as well as this one and
this one
and lastly, this one
that describes an existential crisis that’s wedging professional golf. Who’d have guessed?
Remarkably, existential has its
own associated philosophy – existentialism. If you took Philosophy 101 in
college you might remember existentialism with a small dose of mental, but not
existential, strain. Here’s my strictly amateur synopsis of existentialism.
Existentialism is centered around
the personal human exploration of the nature of existence. From its perspective
the individual commences his/her inquiry from a point of “existential angst” and
attempts to live their life earnestly with authenticity, based on their actions.
In the late 19th- and 20th-century Soren Kierkegaard, Fredrich Nietzsche, Martin
Heidegger, Simone de Beauvoir and Jean Paul Sartre were among the first
existentialist movers and shakers.
Generally speaking, they thought that
each individual — not religion or culture — is responsible for giving meaning
to life and, through individual action, living it authentically. Existentialists
are interested in closely examining existence, especially human existence. Sartre
said, Man is fully responsible for his nature and his choices; and, Freedom is
what you do with what’s been done to you.
Existentialists, through proper
action, hope to triumph over the absurdity of existence. As such, existentialism
is the opposite of nihilism. Nihilists are skeptical of everything and
claim there is no god, no heaven or hell. Their predisposition leads to conceiving
there can be no right or wrong.
My most memorable contact with
nihilism came when I first watched one of my all-time great movies, “The Big
Lebowski.” In it Jeff Bridges stars as Jeffrey "The Dude" Lebowski, a
slacker middle-aged bachelor with a fondness for cannabis and bowling. In a
memorable scene, he’s assaulted by the Nihilists: Uli, Dieter, Franz along with
their ferret. Uli tells The Dude, “Ve believes in nossing.” The Dude abides.
If you want to dive deeper into
existentialism, I suggest reading At the Existentialist Café, which a
good friend recommended. In her book author Sarah Bakewell uses the literary
conceit of a café to describe existential luminaries and their beliefs. Her literary
café is perhaps modeled after a meeting between Sartre and his philosopher
buddy Raymond Aron likely at the Café de Flore shown below, where Aron pointed
to his glass on the table, telling Sartre perhaps only in half-jest, “You can
make a philosophy out of this cocktail.” No mention if his cocktail was a
Parisian Absinthe or not.
Café de
Flore, Paris
But M. Aron’s was a drink (and
food) for thought then, as well as currently. One lesser-known impact of covid-19
has been a strong increase in alcohol sales. In June, alcohol sales at brick
and mortar stores nationwide were up 26% year-over-year. Spirits’ sales
were up 35%, wine up 29% and beer up 21%. Ah, alcohol and existential
challenges go together like a horse and carriage.
Having imbibed in things
existential, I now turn to exponentials, which are somewhat less pliable.
Exponential. Why has the media attached itself to "exponential?" To answer I first define exponential and briefly examine its mathematical basis. Feel free to skip this and the next paragraph if you want to escape the math, no worries. Exponential is succinctly defined as: of or
relating to an exponent. Exponentiation is a mathematical operation. As you may recall from algebra, an exponent is a symbol written above and to the right of
a mathematical expression to indicate the action of raising to a power. In the
following example, the exponent is 2; 32 is 3 to the power of 2, or 3
squared, which equals 9.
An exponential equation in its
simplest form is written as Y = bn, involving two independent numbers, the base b and the
exponent or power n, “Y = b raised to the power of n." When n is a
positive integer, exponentiation corresponds to repeated multiplication of the
base. That is, bn
is the product of multiplying together n bases:
It’s not just expansionary growth,
it’s seemingly huger exponential growth. All too many healthcare professionals
describe their perilous current state as "It keeps rising and rising, and
we’re all running on fear. The health care system is going to collapse, no
question." No wonder exponential has become more prominently applied,
independent of what actual covid growth is.
Exponentials are a bit tricky
mathematically speaking. Expressing ever-rising growth in exponential terms
requires that the base (b, above) and the exponent (n, above) be positive
integers. If n is zero, then Y is always 0 no matter what the base is. If n is
1, then Y is the number itself because any number raised to the power of 1 is
the number itself. If the base, b, is less than 1 or n is less than 1 there’s
no positive change/growth at all, Y will be negatively sloped. In fact,
virtually any growth rate can be characterized as exponential. It all
depends on the values of the exponent and the base.
Needless to say, media writers don’t
bother with these intricacies. All of their statements implicitly assume a
positive exponent more than 1 and a base greater than 1.
Usage of the word exponential has increased 25% according to Google; far less than that of existential. Recent media stories have used exponential in the following ways.
- “The virus has now entered a stage of exponential growth that will be hard to halt with minor actions.”
- “With no new curbs, exponential growth could continue for weeks.”
- “As the pandemic seeps into every area of the country and scientists warn of exponential growth ahead of the holidays.”
- "We are nearing a phase of exponential growth, if we haven't entered it already."
- And illustrating that exponential is not limited only to referencing covid growth, here’s “State of the art uses of artificial intelligence (AI) in treating diseases and disorders of the brain have shown exponential growth.”
Exponential and existential have
become watchwords for these times, courtesy of the virus and the media.
Our up-coming Thanksgiving holiday
will pose its own challenges. As one UCSF doctor mentioned, “I’m massively
worried. If you wanted to design something to make [coronavirus] things go
worse, you would have designed Thanksgiving exactly when it’s coming.” Here’s
hoping your turkey, stuffing, green-bean casserole and cranberry sauce is just
tasty, not unhealthy. Take good care.
[1] Anne, in the store you can find these bananas right next to existential bread.
