[yldstrk]

I think he meant a reason to keep putting one foot in front of another when mans’ inhumanity to man is all too apparent. For example, I am living for my kids. I care not for myself.

[AEMILIUS PAULUS]

Logically “the search for meaning” assumes there is meaning! Perhaps Nihilism is now Western mans “meaning.”

[tired&retired]

Some day people will look within and see that most of this is all a facade. There really is meaning, but you have to think there is none in order to find it.

[hinckley buzzard]

Spengler missed the main point of Frankl's work, that those who had a reason to live were likely to survive the camps, while those who did not, succumbed. The idea was not the search--this is Spengler making the modernist error, to focus on the process instead of the state of being. Frankl used the "search" paradigm in therapy but not as an explanation for the camp survivors. Frankl summed up camp survival by quoting Nietsche: "Those who have a "why" to live can endure virtually any "how."

He simply deduced that to help his clients find a "why" made good sense. He was right of course, although it is easier said than done.

[John 3_19-21]

Apologies but, the thread title made me think of the Robin Williams joke:

“I don’t get the whole zen- Buddist thing. You spend your whole life trying to achieve nothingness and when you die what do you have?.....Bupkis

[melsec]

“Just what about man qualifies him to search for meaning, whatever that might be?”

Because man thinks and in thinking wants to know. What qualifies him to give answers to that search may be another matter.

Mel

[Maven]

The answer to life, the universe and everything is 42.

I thought everyone knew that!

[hocndoc]

We are the only species having this conversation.