The century’s world wars produced the need for mystery as an ethical ground

Evidence

The mystery tradition had roots in Kierkegaard’s ‘leap of faith’. It owed much to the other great nineteenth-century mystic of the impossible, Dostoevsky, and to older theological notions. But it also grew from the protracted trauma that was the first half of the twentieth century. Since 1914, and especially since 1939, people in Europe and elsewhere had come to the realisation that we cannot fully know or trust ourselves; that we have no excuses or explanations for what we do — and yet that we must ground our existence and relationships on something firm, because otherwise we cannot survive. — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 635

Categorization

• XREF: This causal claim — trauma generating a philosophical tradition — resonates with the reader’s knowledge of existentialism’s post-war popularity and its link to historical catastrophe. — connects to: Context makes some killing morally required rather than wrong; Twentieth-century serious fiction turned inward toward the psychological

Broader Connections

• Context makes some killing morally required rather than wrong #complicates (0.72)
• Twentieth-century serious fiction turned inward toward the psychological #expands (0.70)