Existentialism and Human Emotions
Existentialism and Human Emotions by Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980)
“What counts is total involvement; some one particular action or set of circumstances is not total involvement.”
This foundational belief of Sartre’s (and major tenet of existentialism - a view of the individual as being unique or alone in an indifferent and even hostile environment) made him the most visible philosopher of the twentieth century. Whether working in the French Resistance during World War II, battling for abortion rights in the ‘50’s, denouncing the French war in Algeria, boating with Castro, or declining the Nobel Prize in the ‘60’s, Sartre was always a “man of action.” Many times his activism and philosophy were derided as empty, irresponsible, licentious, incoherent, or evil. Undaunted, however, by these incessant attacks, he pushed his philosophy forward, writing numerous works of drama and fiction to illustrate his philosophy (No Exit, The Flies, The Ways of Freedom, etc.), many of which are still very popular in certain philosophical and literary circles.
Though Sartre’s philosophy of existentialism is rejected by most Anglo-American philosophers, in the rest of the world it is embraced as legitimate modern-age theory. His influence was and is wide among artists and intellectuals the world over, as evidenced by the harsh criticism levied against him still now, over a decade after his death. Sartre was controversial largely due to his bold claims about responsibility. Essentially, he felt that we are individually and totally responsible for all of our actions. We have total freedom to make choices, he said, and we each define ourselves via these choices. Those individuals who denied this, he declared, were simply in “bad faith” (a key term Sartre uses to describe those who escape responsibility.)
In Existentialism and Human Emotions , Sartre combines several essays to show existentialism, far from being an evil, could actually serve to unlock human potential and make modern life more bearable. Nonetheless, its frank, up-front material was not written for the faint of heart.
The definitive biography of Sartre is subtitled Hated Conscience of His Century. This description is apt. In a public letter declining the Nobel Prize, Sartre stated that accepting the prize would require him to reject the concept of “freedom” the Nobel committee had so majestically cited in its award. Sartre gave his succinct answer to the committee: “Freedom means nothing if one has no shoes, my fellow men have no shoes.”
Text Overview:
“I should like on this occasion to defend existentialism against some charges which have been brought against it,” Sartre begins. It is said that existentialism encourages “quietism,” in that it holds that solutions to the world’s problems are impossible. It is also said that existentialism dwells on “human degradation . . . the sordid, shady, and slimy, and neglects the gracious and beautiful.” Further, existentialism is charged with denying hope and human solidarity; by rejecting God, man leaves his life meaningless and arbitrary. “I shall try,” Sartre announces, “ . . . to answer these difficult charges.”
“ . . . What can be said from the very beginning is that by existentialism we mean a doctrine which makes human life possible and, in addition, declares that every truth and every action implies a human setting and a human subjectivity.”
He continues: “As is generally known, the basic charge of us [existentialists] is that we put the emphasis on the dark side of human life.” But, this is not so; the same people who brand existentialism as pessimism also believe in the “wisdom of the ages,” that is, in not resisting authority, following the status quo, promoting violent repression, and blame it all on, and justify it on the basis of, the natural state of “humanity.” These are the people, he claims who accuse existentialism of being too gloomy. “And to such an extent that I wonder whether they are complaining about it, not for its pessimism, but much rather its optimism. Can it be that what really scares them in the doctrine I shall try to present here is that it leaves to a man a possibility of choice?”
Existentialists declare that “existence precedes essence, or if you prefer, that subjectivity must be the starting point." This is the leading idea of existentialism. Consider the [computer] in front of you, he asks the reader. It was made by an individual whose “inspiration came from a concept.” Then, specific operations were carried out to produce the computer according to a plan. Thus, in in the case of the computer, essence (a concept or plan) preceded existence (the actual computer.) And since the existence of the computer was determined by a concept or plan prior to it, it can only be a computer. Its “essence” is that of a computer and it cannot “decide” to be something other than what it is. So, then, not only does a computer’s essence precede existence, it is also fixed.
In the case of a man, the exact opposite is true. Although, traditionally, man has been conceived of as coming into existence out of the essence of God’s mind, existentialism denies the existence of God, and, accordingly, the notion that that human essence (due to God) comes prior to human existence. Therefore, existence precedes essence. “What is meant here by saying existence precedes essence? It means that, first of all, man exists, turns up, appears on the scene, and, only afterwards, defines himself.” That is, man is not a determinate thing; rather, he must face the universal task of determining and defining himself. “If man, as the existentialist conceives him, is indefinable, it is because at first he is nothing . . . “ This brings us to existentialism’s first principle, also called subjectivity: “Man is nothing else but what he makes of himself.”
Subjectivity means that a person chooses what he will be, and then goes out and attempts to create that self. Also, in a lesser sense, by example, he chooses for all men. “In fact, in creating the man we want to be, there is not a single one of our acts which does not at the same time create an image of man as we think he ought to be.” This places a great amount of responsibility on each individual.
“ . . . Our responsibility is much greater than we might have supposed, because it involves all of mankind,” he explains. “If I am a workingman and choose to join a Christian trade-union rather than be a communist, and if by being a member I want to show that the best thing for a man is resignation, that the kingdom of man is not of this world, I am not only involving my case - I want to be resigned for everyone.”
Because of this premise of subjectivity, or choice, all individuals are forced to feel three overwhelming emotions: anguish (duty to others), forlornness (total individual responsibility), and despair (the realization that one cannot change the world in which he is forced to exist).
Anguish, in the “Sartrean” sense of the word, means that “the man who involves himself and who realizes that he is not only the person he chooses to be, but also a law-maker who is, at the same time, choosing all mankind as well as himself, cannot help escape the feeling of his total and deep responsibility.” In effect, says Sartre, every act in which an individual involves himself is actually an act which directs humanity, which brings on an inevitable feeling of dutiful anguish.
Forlornness connotes facing not only the fact that God does not exist, but also everything that this fact entails. But these two beliefs, Sartre contends, do not make things easier to understand: “The existentialist . . . thinks it very distressing that God does not exist, because all possibility of finding values in a heaven of ideas disappears along with him . . . Indeed, everything is permissible if God does not exist, and as a result man is forlorn, because neither within him or without does he find anything to cling to. He can’t start making excuses for himself.”
This condition of being totally responsible for one’s own actions, truly frees man: there are no excuses for past actions, nor justification for future ones. This is precisely the reason for forlornness. Consider, for example, the case of the young man who, in the throes of World War II, had to choose between leaving his elderly mother to join allied forces in England, or staying with his mother and joining the French resistance. In this case, no one could tell the young man what to do; there was no divine power whispering in his ear what path he should follow; there were no absolute values to guide him. He was utterly alone - forlorn, totally responsible. But he was also utterly free - free to choose.
Despair, the third choice-induced emotion, is the feeling brought on by the realization that only one’s individual actions - not collective ones - make up ones life; thus, Sartre points out, while it is impossible to “change the world,” it is still necessary to live in it. “To be sure, this may seem a harsh thought to someone whose life hasn’t been a success. But, on the other hand it prompts people to understand that reality alone is what counts, that dreams, expectations, and hopes warrant no more than to define a man as a disappointed dream, as miscarried hopes, as vain expectations.”
Though every human being is responsible for his effect on others - and even though only his own existence is real to him, and, ultimately, he is his own judge - still, in a nihilistic (meaningless, unknowable, baseless) universe, nihilism reigns, and “all human activities are equivalent, all destined [to go down in] defeat.”
An espousal of these controversial concepts - the hostile nature of the world, subjectivity (free choice), anguish (duty), forlornness (individual responsibility), and despair (fatalism) - has caused existentialism to be labeled a philosophy of pessimism. However, Sartre counters, “at our core we are toughly optimistic.” To him existentialism is idealistic and hopeful, in that it endows man with freedom. Man is the sole author of his ethics, Sartre concludes, the sculptor of his image. And by accepting existentialism’s tenets, each individual is capable of attaining true personal freedom: “What the existentialist says is that a cowards makes himself cowardly, that the hero makes himself heroic. There’s always a possibility for the coward not to be cowardly . . . And for the hero to stop being heroic. What counts is total involvement.”