Existentialism was a philosophy born out of the Angst of post-war Europe,
out of a loss of faith in the ideals of progress, reason and science which
had led to Dresden and Auschwitz. If not only God, but reason and objective
value are dead, then man is abandoned in an absurd and alien world. The
philosophy for man in this “age of distress” must be a subjective, personal
one. A person’s remaining hope is to return to his “inner self”, and to
live in whatever ways he feels are true to that self. The hero for this
age, the existentialist hero, lives totally free from the constraints of
discredited traditions, and commits himself unreservedly to the demands
of his inner, authentic being.