CONDEMNED TO BE FREE

[The title of this entry is a quotation from its subject, Sartre, to the effect that man’s freedom is equated with his responsibility for his own actions.]

The great and controversial Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980) used to be famous in Russia of my time as much, if not more, for his politics, as for his peculiar existential philosophy. He was a fiercely independent thinker who was particularly respected for his habitual practice of standing up to his friends no less than to his enemies.

He was never a Marxist, as it is impossible to identify him with any specific political movement or ideology (as he was himself loath to do), but his political position has been described as “being close to Marxism.” He was an enemy of all tyranny and vociferously protested equally against the actions of the USSR in Hungary in 1956 and in Czechoslovakia in 1968; of the United States in Cuba and Vietnam; and of his own France in Algeria. He welcomed Castro’s revolution in Cuba, but later quarreled with Castro over his treatment of the political prisoners in Cuba. In 1964, despite his protestations before the fact, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, but he still refused to accept it, explaining this by his unwillingness to be used as a political pawn in the Cold War between East and West. (He stressed that he was particularly averse to receiving the Prize from the well-known anti-Soviet organization, the Nobel Committee, at the time when he was sharply critical of the USSR, and his selection could well be seen as his reward for that criticism. Curiously, this reminds me of my maternal grandfather Mitrophan, an ultra-conservative monarchist in his younger pre-Revolution years, who had given refuge from the Tsarist government to a firebrand revolutionary whom he thoroughly detested, just because he was his fellow student, and especially because Mitrophan detested the fellow’s anti-Government views, and did not wish to be misconstrued.)

Sartre’s most famous novel La Nausée published in 1938 has become known as his Manifesto of Existentialism, the philosophy which he professed and became the face of. In his words, “existentialism that is humanism,” and his political life and philosophy always lived up to this understanding.

One of the key concepts of Sartrean philosophy is the concept of freedom, an absolute which is precedential to man’s essence. His freedom is not some inactive freedom of the spirit, but the most fundamental freedom of choice, which cannot be taken away from man under any circumstances. Even a prisoner is free to make his decision whether to give up or keep fighting. Existence is the constantly living moment of activity, taken subjectively. It is not a steady substance, but a never-ending imbalance. The “I” in-itself has no meaning. It is through man’s activity that a meaning is given to the external world. Outside such activity, all objects are merely data, that is, passive and inert circumstances. By giving them meaning through his activity, the man forms himself as a certain individuality.

Closely related to the concept of freedom is that of alienation. Modern individuum is an alienated being: his individuality is standardized, subjugated to various social institutions, such as the state itself. The alienated man has problems with material objects: they oppress him by their overbearing existence, causing a nausea. In counterbalance to this, Sartre posits the immediacy and wholesomeness of human relationships.

Finally, there is the peculiar Sartrean concept of dialectics. The essence of dialectics is the synthetic unity of the whole (totalization), since only within one whole the laws of dialectics have a meaning. (This is actually much closer to Hegel than any of the more common interpretations! It also throws some extra bright light on the much abused Gentilean concept of “totalitarismo.” See my numerous challenging entries on totalitarianism throughout this blog.) The individuum totalizes the material circumstances and his relationships with other people, and himself creates history just as much as this history creates him. (This is already an influence of Marx’s interactive metaphysics of matter and consciousness!) Objective economic and social structures present themselves as an alienated superstructure over the internal individual elements of the project. Totalization expands the space of individual freedom, as the individuum realizes that history is being created by him.

Sartre insists that dialectics originates with the individual, and consistently denies dialectics to nature.

…All of the above clearly shows that despite certain derivative elements, Sartre is a noteworthy and original philosopher, who deserves a further study from us, and he shall undoubtedly get it, time and circumstances permitting. Of a special additional interest to me will be the connection between his and Dostoyevskyan philosophies, since Sartre himself acknowledges Dostoyevsky’s particular influence on his thinking. Needless to say, I am looking forward to this challenge with great relish.