https://doi.org/10.4081/mem.2024.1258
The meaning of affliction. Pain and suffering in Emmanuel Mounier's Lettres
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Affliction is an experience that has lost its meaning in contemporary society. The analgesic tendency that marks today's cultural landscape seeks to preserve humans from pain and suffering as these have become purposeless afflictions which threaten to make existence a futile and absurd misery. Emmanuel Mounier's experiental approach is different: in his Lettres, he has often addressed the topic of suffering inscribing it within an original meaning perspective, open to transcendence and Christianity. This article aims to examine the difference between physical pain and biographical suffering, and to grasp, within the framework of human relationships, the proprium of relationships such as care, friendship and affection, that both transcend and ideally set medical practices. Despite the tendency to medicalize it, suffering continues to draw attention to the question of the meaning of life, dealing with censorship, acceptance and resignation. Suffering represents, in Mounier's view, an experience that can lead to a maturation of the person, within the range of truth, otherness and love.
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