Resistentialism parodied existentialism as a doctrine that objects oppose humans

Evidence

In 1948, the New York Times Magazine reprinted an existentialist spoof by Paul F. Jennings from the British weekly the Spectator, called ‘Thingness of Things’. It described a philosophy of ‘resistentialism’ propounded by one Pierre-Marie Ventre, dedicated to undersanding why things resist and frustrate human beings at every turn, as when they trip us up underfoot, or decline to be found when lost. Ventre’s slogan is ‘Les choses sont contre nous’ — ‘Things are against us’. — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 550

Categorization

• CANDY: A fun trivia fact: a satirical philosophy called ‘resistentialism’ with the slogan ‘Things are against us’ — light cocktail-party material about existentialism’s pop-culture reception.
• XREF: Connects to the reader’s broader interest in how philosophical movements get absorbed and parodied by popular culture — echoes the grafting article’s theme of ideas transplanted into unexpected soil. — connects to: Things resist all relational designations humanity tries to impose on them.