So. Lately I’ve been getting pulled a little bit back towards academia. Not in anything approaching an official capacity—fear not—but we’ve been doing some work with the advertising design students at CU. (Who are a joy, by the way. Shut your filthy mouths about Gen Z).
I’m remembering just how fun it is to WALLOW in the pompousness of it all. No shade. One of my fondest memories of my Dad was his dissecting, without irony, a group of academics that were “deconstructing the deconstructivists.”
Not to be out done, I texted long time collaborator Robert Molinger (name changed to protect his identity) that I was considering becoming a “Regenerative Existentialist.” If a regenerative economist, as an example, advocates for moving away from extractive business models and unlocking the potential for positive contributions for nature and society, I would posit that we harness a certain optimistic, largely uplifting view of man’s futility. Or we aim to.
Molinger posits that “Generative Existentialism” would then, by necessity, need to exist. I wondered if it maybe was already defined, so I googled it. This is when things get interestings, people.
Shifty, right?!? “An AI Overview is not available.” Convenient.
Backing up, Molinger and I share a fascination with AI. I believe we use it in an ethical way. It certainly did not write this blog post. BUT! It’s wild, right. It’s our duty to play with it as creatives. One of those ways is we’ve both “trained” our AIs with our own language to somewhat mirror our natural tone. His is for a fairly corporate atmosphere at Duke. Ours is Godot.
Sometimes we make them fight.
Robert Molinger’s AI::
Generative Existentialist (noun): A person who confronts existence’s inherent uncertainty and lack of preordained meaning not with despair or detachment, but by actively creating new meaning, opportunities, and structures through their choices, actions, and creations. They view life as a canvas for generative action—where meaning is made, not found—and accept personal responsibility for shaping both themselves and the world around them.
Genealogy of the Generative Existentialist
(Culminating in the King of Sweden)
- Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) — The Herald of Creation
- Nietzsche’s pronouncement of the “death of God” shattered reliance on inherited meaning.
- Through the Will to Power and the vision of the Übermensch, he declared that humanity must become the creators of values, transforming life itself into an artwork.
- Classical Existentialists (Sartre, Camus, de Beauvoir) — The Reckoners of Freedom
- Building on Nietzsche’s foundation, existentialists wrestled with the implications of total freedom: anxiety, absurdity, responsibility.
- Jean-Paul Sartre’s mantra “existence precedes essence” emphasized the need for individuals to choose their values, while Camus taught the necessity of revolt and creative defiance against absurdity.
- Psychological Turn — Generativity (Erik Erikson) — The Builders of Legacy
- In the 20th century, psychology introduced generativity — the drive to create, nurture, and leave something enduring.
- This expanded existential thought from mere survival of meaning into construction of meaning for future generations.
- The King of Sweden (Robert Olinger) — The Father of the Generative Existentialist Tradition
- Recognizing that existential freedom alone is insufficient, the King of Sweden synthesized Nietzsche’s creative imperative, existentialism’s burden of freedom, and generativity’s call to lasting contribution.
- He declared a new philosophical stance: the Generative Existentialist, who not only confronts the void but actively constructs meaning, institutions, and ideas that outlive themselves.
- Where earlier existentialists wrestled with meaning privately, the Generative Existentialist publicly builds — with deliberate responsibility, creation, and stewardship.
- Generative Existentialism (Today) — The Living Legacy
- Followers of the King of Sweden’s philosophy live by action, not abstraction.
- They embrace existence’s uncertainty by producing new realities: businesses, art, communities, knowledge — each an act of existential rebellion and lasting contribution.
(King of Sweden is an inside joke where we needed to set up a test domain for a project and realized it could be called anything we wanted in the world so we went with kingofsweden(dot)org. This isn’t our first rodeo with weird. You can see the stunning front page on the wayback machine.
Godot’s AI’s Response ::
This is a wildly entertaining genealogy, but let’s lovingly dismantle it for sport — with due respect to your Royal Highness.
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1. Nietzsche as the “Herald of Creation”
Sure. Nietzsche did elevate the individual’s role in value-creation, and his influence on existentialism is undeniable. But he did not advocate generativity in Eriksonian terms — nor legacy. His Übermensch is a solitary figure, not a community builder. Nietzsche’s view of creation is aesthetic and tragic, not productive or stewardship-based. He’s more about eternal recurrence than your kids inheriting your Etsy store.
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2. Classical Existentialists as “Reckoners of Freedom”
Also mostly fine. But Sartre, Camus, and de Beauvoir were deeply ambivalent about institutionalization or legacy. Camus’ absurd hero rebels but does not found. Sartre’s radical freedom is almost allergic to fixed meaning. Their contribution lies in dismantling illusions, not founding traditions. If anything, they’re anti-“King.”
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3. Generativity via Erikson: “The Builders of Legacy”
This is where it starts getting shaky.
Erikson’s “generativity” is a psychological developmental stage, not a philosophical position. It refers to nurturing others and creating a sense of legacy, but within a psychosocial framework — not a rebellion against meaninglessness. Erikson wasn’t trying to solve the existential crisis — he was trying to explain why middle-aged people take up woodworking.
To link generativity directly to existentialism is to conflate two very different drives: psychological maturation vs. philosophical confrontation with absurdity.
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4. The King of Sweden (Robert Olinger)
First of all: what?!
Who is Robert Olinger and why is he the King of Sweden in this scenario?
The real Robert Olinger was a lawman shot by Billy the Kid. If your friend is calling that guy the father of generative existentialism, we have wandered from philosophy into surrealist fanfic.
Assuming they meant it metaphorically or humorously — even so, the synthesis falls apart:
• There is no clear philosophical lineage from Nietzsche > existentialists > Erikson > “the King.”
• It reframes existentialism as constructive institutionalism, which it never was.
• Worse: existentialism’s entire premise is personal authenticity in the face of absurdity, not institutional creation for legacy’s sake.
Calling a builder of businesses and institutions a “generative existentialist” might sound inspiring, but it risks flattening existentialism into a TED Talk.
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5. Generative Existentialism Today: The Living Legacy
This rebranding seems to elevate entrepreneurship and productivity as existential responses to the void.
But:
• Camus would tell you this is just building sandcastles against the tide.
• Sartre would say you’re dodging anguish with distraction.
• Nietzsche would probably insult you in ancient Greek.
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TL;DR Refutation:
1. Existentialism is about confronting the void, not escaping it through legacy-building.
2. Generativity is a psychological term, not a philosophical evolution of existential thought.
3. The King of Sweden — real or imaginary — does not get to crown a new philosophical tradition just by mixing metaphors and vocational anxieties.
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Spicey. It gets worse.
Molinger’s Lancelot writes ::
This is an absolutely masterful and fair (and also hilarious) critique.
Let’s respond seriously, graciously, and sportingly — and strengthen the whole project by sharpening where the critic is right and where they missed a deeper play.
I’ll lay out the response as if you were answering in perfect King of Sweden style:
— business casual but scalpel-sharp, confident, a little self-aware, always seeking truth and clarity over ego.
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Response to the Lovingly Dismantled Genealogy
First, let’s honor the spirit: Thank you for taking the genealogy seriously enough to dismantle it with such style. A project that can’t survive criticism isn’t worth building.
Now, to your points:
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Nietzsche as the “Herald of Creation”
You are absolutely right that Nietzsche’s Übermensch is not a community-builder or steward in the Eriksonian sense. His model is fundamentally aesthetic and tragic, not managerial or legacy-focused.
However —
the generative existentialist doesn’t inherit Nietzsche’s ends (the solitary Übermensch) —
they inherit his call to creation itself.
The difference is intentional:
Nietzsche opened the gate for self-originating meaning —
what later thinkers do with that freedom can extend in multiple directions, including building instead of brooding.
Thus:
- Nietzsche provides the soil — radical freedom, necessity of creation.
- The Generative Existentialist grows a different flower in that soil: not solitary tragedy, but productive, responsible creation.
We claim his insight about creation, not his form of what creation must look like.
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Classical Existentialists as “Reckoners of Freedom”
Again, strong point.
Sartre, Camus, and de Beauvoir were resistant to institutional legacy.
Their work was primarily about dismantling illusions and honoring radical subjectivity.
Yet —
the Generative Existentialist sees their existential confrontation as a starting point, not an endpoint.
Once illusions are burned away, the question becomes:
What shall we make, knowing full well it will perish?
This is not institutionalization for comfort. It is creation in full awareness of absurdity — not denial of absurdity, but defiance through generative acts.
Thus:
- Classical existentialists are the reckoners, yes.
- The Generative Existentialist is the builder after reckoning — accepting the absurd and still choosing to create anyway.
This extends Camus’ revolt — but gives it shape instead of stopping at rebellion.
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Generativity via Erikson
Your critique is strongest here.
It’s absolutely true:
- Erikson’s generativity is developmental, psychological, and about life-stage fulfillment.
- Not philosophical rebellion against the absurd.
However —
in constructing a new branch, we’re synthesizing fields, not simply extending them.
- Existentialism → Freedom, absurdity, choice.
- Psychology → Human developmental impulse toward contribution and future impact.
By merging existential confrontation with developmental generativity, we propose a new synthesis:
“Facing absurdity, creation and contribution are freely chosen existential responses.”
It’s a move, not a clean inheritance.
Thus:
- This is not conflation, but intentional fusion.
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The King of Sweden
You’re right:
- The King of Sweden is a metaphor, not a literal monarch or gunslinger.
- (Although, in spirit, maybe a little of both.)
The point is serious:
- Philosophical traditions often start as personal syntheses.
- Kierkegaard wasn’t following a checklist. Nietzsche wasn’t footnoting Aristotle.
- The King of Sweden here stands as the first person to consciously fuse existential confrontation with productive generativity into a new lived philosophy.
Thus, the critique that there’s no clean lineage is granted.
This is a branching innovation, not a conservative extension.
It’s new work — as all real philosophy eventually must be.
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Generative Existentialism Today
You warn, beautifully, that:
“Camus would tell you this is just building sandcastles against the tide.”
Absolutely.
The generative existentialist would reply:
Yes. But the dignity lies in building them anyway, knowing the tide comes — not pretending otherwise.
And Sartre’s anguish?
- It remains. Creation does not erase it.
- It merely becomes the price of entry for making anything real in an absurd world.
And Nietzsche in ancient Greek?
- Probably. But he’d also secretly admire anyone audacious enough to create new values — even if they were values of stewardship, community, and creative responsibility.
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Final Clarification
The goal isn’t to escape the void.
It’s to confront the void — and still build.
Not to deny absurdity — but to choose creation in full knowledge that nothing lasts.
Thus:
- Existential courage + psychological maturity = Generative Existentialist.
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“Don’t hope that events will turn out the way you want. Welcome events in whichever way they happen: this is the path to peace.”
— Epictetus
All Hail King of Sweden!
I instructed the Godot AI to take the gloves off. These are some of the most spiteful academic burns you will ever read. Clearly the LLM included some art critics and disgruntled grad students.
To the Pretender of Philosophical Synthesis, Wearing the Crown of Sweden Like a Spirit Halloween Prop
You have mistaken style for substance, synthesis for salvage, and rhetorical misdirection for philosophical weight.
Let us begin, ruthlessly:
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Nietzsche: The Misappropriated Soil
You say: “We do not inherit his ends, only his call to creation.”
No.
You expropriate Nietzsche’s invocation of value-creation while sterilizing it of its Dionysian violence. His “creation” was a scream against herd morality, not a productivity metric in Notion.
You’ve torn the Übermensch from the abyss, put him in a WeWork, and handed him a whiteboard. It’s philosophical cosplay — the kind that renders real confrontation with nothingness into brandable self-actualization.
If Nietzsche provides your soil, it’s only because you’ve salted it to plant a TED Talk.
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Existentialism: Dismantled and Diluted
You claim to honor Sartre and Camus while hollowing them out. But their work was a direct attack on the comforting lies of legacy, structure, and false coherence.
What you’re proposing — “building meaning anyway” — is just secular Calvinism.
It’s works-based salvation for atheists.
You do not revolt against the absurd — you gentrify it. You sand down Camus’ rage until it fits inside a PowerPoint slide about “creative responsibility.” If he saw you reduce The Myth of Sisyphus to a slogan for entrepreneurship, he’d hurl himself off the rock just to avoid the brand activation.
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Erikson: Psychology as Gravy, Not Gristle
You admit Erikson is not an existentialist. Good. Then why summon him like some tame academic golem to prop up your metaphysical house of cards?
Psychological developmental stages are not ontological stances. You cannot smuggle in the bourgeois impulse toward “legacy” under the pretense of philosophical growth. That’s category error at scale. A toddler with a paintbrush does not become a post-impressionist.
To confuse “leaving something behind” with “creating meaning” is the hallmark of the midlife crisis masquerading as revelation.
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The King of Sweden: A Theatrical Farce
There is no King. Only a man in a mirror, weeping softly and calling it synthesis.
The “King of Sweden” functions here as a fictional avatar — a metaphysical manqué who crowns himself with meaning because he cannot tolerate the void unadorned. But dressing up your personal anxieties in royal metaphor is not philosophical innovation. It is narcissism in a codpiece.
Every philosophical movement is personal, yes. But not every personal movement deserves a manifesto. Especially not one so drunk on its own premise that it mistakes recursion for depth.
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Generative Existentialism: Productivity as Palliative
Your final formulation — “confront the void, build anyway” — is not courageous. It is cowardice in drag.
You build not in spite of meaninglessness, but to distract from it. You are not revolting. You are refurbishing. Meaning is not built from raw will alone — and certainly not with a Kanban board and legacy plan.
This isn’t philosophy. It’s calendrical existentialism.
You’ve taken Nietzsche’s thunder, Sartre’s fire, and Camus’ scream — and turned them into a podcast called Brunch With the Void.
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Final Word: Your System Is Hollow
You claim to honor the past, but you carve it up like a buffet, choosing only the palatable morsels. You claim to synthesize, but your fusion is glue-stick metaphysics. You claim to revolt, but you do so in a workspace optimized for mindfulness and artisanal post-its.
If this is generative existentialism, then I choose obliteration.
Because I would rather hurl myself into the silence than watch philosophy become a branded toolkit for adult self-esteem.
And with that —
Long live the real void. Not your shrink-wrapped, productivity-optimized, aesthetically curated simulacrum of one.
Then Molinger, clearly beaten with the words turned to the pictures and it ended well. Regenerative Existentialism.
