Minute Meditation on the Struggle to Maintain One’s Dignity in the Struggle for Self-Preservation: A Lesson from the Nazi Concentration Camps
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My understanding of human experience from a Judeo-Christian world view.
From his observations of human suffering in the Nazi concentration camps, including his own suffering, Frankl concludes that a human “may remain brave, dignified and unselfish. Or in the bitter fight for self-preservation he may forget his human dignity and become no more than an animal.”
There is, then, no problem with the biological instinct for self-preservation. But “how” a person expresses that instinctive drive remains, for the most part, under his or her control. Therefore, the struggle for self-preservation challenges a person to “rise up,” to transcend himself or herself, to be more than an animal, by acting as a dignified human being.