On Existentialism is a Humanism

Last winter I read the full transcript of Existentialism is a Humanism and I must confess I read it with different eyes this time. For whatever reason, Sartre’s philosophy on responsibility didn’t hit me or sink in last year, but it certainly is making an impression on me now.

My objection is that Sartre’s philosophy about absolute personal responsibility is over-simplistic and exclusive. Sartre posits that there are no accidents and that a person creates their passions and emotions. It seemed to me that he meant that everything that happens is my responsibility and fault. Which I resent. My absolute responsibility is not only nonfactual, but impossible.

Sartre’s example was war, in which each person who does not commit suicide or desert effectually chooses the war. That might be the case for some people, but not all people, because there are certainly people who are caught up in events in which they have no choice or discernible influence. For instance, I was not responsible for the financial crisis in 2008 (even though I did not commit suicide or leave the US, in case you were wondering). I acknowledge that it might be said that many people in power chose the crisis, via dereliction of duty or virtue or what have you. But it’s absurd to say that I personally chose the financial crisis or that or that I created a world in which such a thing could happen. Not only am I not, here and now, in any position of power, I was also not any significant player in the crisis’s precipitating events. Sartre’s absolute responsibility does not account for history (or physiology, bizarrely) in any way, which is neglecting a highly important consideration.

I don’t really understand Sartre’s reasons for rejecting physiological influence in emotion. Maybe that’s because of my times, when physiological reactions are considered matters of fact. It sounds to me like Sartre doesn’t include several important distinctions in the process of stimuli, reaction, and choice. Grant me that there are physiological reactions over which we have little control—for instance, jumping when startled. A distinct stage from that stimuli is the psychological reaction, which is probably heavily instinctual, although I would argue that that reaction can be changed with conditioning. In my example, after being startled, the psychological reaction could be the desire to flee, lash out, or gain bearings on the situation. I think it’s really important to account for yet another distinct stage in which a person chooses to react. If I was startled, I could desire to lash out but restrain myself and look around for the danger first. Or I could be startled, desire to flee, and actually take steps back. I guess the problem arises from the second case—if I desire to flee and do run away, Sartre would be mad if I said that I HAD to run because I was scared. In that way, he might say I chose to be scared. I think that’s where my problem would be—it’s inaccurate to say I chose to be sacred. It’s better to say that after being scared, I chose to act on my fear in the mode of fleeing (vs. standing my ground or gaining my bearings). It would be pretty frustrating to deal with a person who says that they aren’t responsible for their negative consequences because of their emotions. Yet I think it’s important to include room for character change and deliberation in the philosophy of responsibility. Seeing as how Sartre has a very different idea about character and human nature, I guess I hit a wall here (just to throw in a few more unaccounted situations in which absolute responsibility/choice doesn’t match: shock, being overwhelmed, making involuntary choice, and sin).

Another troublesome aspect of Sartre’s absolute responsibility is its nonsensical implications regarding abuse. To apply his reasoning, it would be to say that the victim chooses to be abused, because he or she does not commit suicide or run away. This is patently false. The responsibility and choice of abuse lies with the abuser. The victim is not creating a world in which the abuser must be abusive (it’s more likely that the abuser would be abusive no matter who is around or what is being done). To say that the victim chooses abuse is victim blaming, and I don’t care what any fancy, influential, old French man says about it—that’s wrong.

Yet, if I’m picking up on Sartre’s motivation correctly, then I can relate to his insistence on responsibility. There are cases in which people play stupid and pretend that they don’t believe in what they’re doing, and it sucks. Yesterday I was confronted with the obligation to be compassionate towards someone who wronged me, supposedly because she was incapacitated. I was completely unwilling to let her off the responsibility of her actions, for any reason more or less. I wanted to hold her to her status as a human being with rational faculties who is capable of making choices and is responsible for them (as an adult no less! With education and resources and experience, how can she not be responsible??). Unfortunately, regardless of my unwillingness, I still do accept my obligation to be compassionate to her. Thus my objection to Sartre applies to two levels—other people and me. Even though I want her to be held accountable, I recognize that there are actually extenuating circumstances in this case that mitigate her responsibility. And even though I want to be justified in hating her because of what she’s done to me, I recognize that my hurt wouldn’t validate my hate, which is a case of a person choosing as they will not.

On Being and Time

Heidegger isn’t as unpleasant as I anticipated. I admit he is mostly unintelligible, but he does have his moments of clarity. I think I like his unintelligible style; it lets me more easily come to my own opinions about what he's saying. What really strikes me is the elegance of his ideas in Being and Time. The impression I got from Heidegger’s description of the world is a transforming yet undiminished and non-growing world. I think Nietzsche is angling at a similar idea when he talks about the eternal world in The Will to Power. Except that Heidegger's way of saying it is prettier and less condescending. Just sayin’, Nietzch.

What makes Heidegger’s philosophy pretty is the transience of virtue (am I allowed to talk about virtue in Heidegger? Let’s say yes—it’s my commentary and I’m interpreting him). I got this picture of a roving mass of roiling. A mound of brownness, leveling and turning, perpetually buzzing at a lazy pace. Every so often, a lighter spot may be seen. The mass just bunches at a further end to reveal a place in which a tiny spec--the individual--starts to brighten. For a glimmering moment, the individual has an explicit grasp on his or her identity. But as soon as that shine is realized, the mass has already commenced re-bunching, shrouding the individual and effectively removing the shine, returning everything to brown. Maybe that’s a weird picture. Anyway, the romance of the idea comes from the brittle, diminishing character of Da-sein in the midst of das Man. Da-sein is the single good thing in the world, but it’s nearly impossible to achieve, and definitely impossible to sustain. The most tragic thing is the anonymity of it. Most don’t recognize the possibility to even begin to realize Da-sein, and even when an individual does begin to realize it, thrownness takes over and it's forgotten, lost in the eddy back to tranquilization. Geeze. Someone needs to make a movie with these themes. It would be amazing. I’d watch it.

An aspect of Heidegger's philosophy that I feel was inaccurately interpreted in class was the “others.” I felt like a hostility and manipulation was read into the others and it wasn’t right. I think Heidegger is very specific in that he says “others” does NOT mean “everybody else but me,” but those whom I neglect to distinguish myself from. An example could be when I’m with my family, or in class, just not thinking about social status or being self-conscious. Just any time I’m unconsciously in a group, anytime I’m standing in a group and NOT going, “I don’t belong with these yahoos.” I feel like the sense of manipulation and hostility read into the others was an inaccurate reading. Not that I get to talk about interpretations, me with my roving mound of das Man and shimmering moments. I just stand by my conviction that there isn’t virtue in being condescending to others, not even being condescending to the herd.

An aspect of Heidegger's philosophy I don't understand is his meaning of "care." The impression I get is that he means “care” in the sense of “participating,” almost. Heidegger specifies that care doesn’t mean worry, but being-in-the-world. He more or less says that “being together” with things is “taking care.” In contemporary language, I think that means care is “being present,” or attending to what’s going on.

An aspect of Heidegger's philosophy I find interesting is the alienation inherent to entanglement. He says that alienation drives the authentic self to self-dissection, in which the self tries out different characterizations and types. Furthermore, he mysteriously says that self-dissection is a legitimate way to be, even if it’s unauthentic. I wonder what he means by that. It could mean that Heidegger merely acknowledges that a person doesn’t pop out of existence when he or she becomes authentic. Or it could mean that he doesn’t place values on authenticity and inauthenticity, as was claimed in class. All in all, I enjoyed reading Heidegger, too, and I might look for more of his work to read.

On The Tragic Sense of Life

We covered a lot of diverse material in class and I’ve decided to concentrate on one work, Unamuno’s The Tragic Sense of Life.  Unamuno is a philosopher I hadn't heard of before, so I’m glad Solomon included him in the text.  I liked his intensity.  Sometimes it’s just nice to know someone give a flying fart about something, you know?  I also amused myself by imagining Unamuno's text spoken with a heavy Spanish accent. 

I can relate to his “up-yours” mentality towards fate.  That aggression can be the saving grace of a troubled life.  Perhaps it seems wild and over the top, but I think Unamuno’s radical mindset was his way of staying sane through hard times.  Like we covered, he lived through many wars and sinister governments.  He professed a radical mindset yet reportedly lived a relatively stable, normal life with a dash of clergy, leadership, and academics thrown in.  It seems contradictory to profess radicalism and live normally, but considering his surroundings, he probably needed those fierce ideas in able to survive and be normal.  It’s difficult to hold his fierce ideas against him.

In an objective sense, though, I can see how the contradiction is unhelpful.  Life isn’t always troubled.  Unamuno fought against the unjust reward of annihilation, but fate is not always coldly just or falsely just.  Sometimes it’s actually just, so what then of one’s fighting spirit?  Is it okay to fight and strive in a time of peace?  Is it really okay to be aggressive and willful against others when they’re not trying to control you?  I’m not so sure.  That would be my problem with Unamuno’s philosophy.  I would want a philosophy that’s comprehensive, for bad times and good times. 

Unamuno proposes that only fanatics base their conduct on dogma and immutable foundations.  This is understood to be a bad thing because foundations crack and tremble, therefore one should have no dogma and no foundation.  I think I can see where Unamuno's going with this, but I still think he's inaccurate and wrong on two counts.  One, uncritically basing life on rote beliefs isn’t fanaticism, it’s apathy.  Fanaticism means devotion, deeply subscribing to something—how can you deeply subscribe to something into which you don’t delve?  The blind faith to which we refer colloquially is not legitimate faith.  Two, a cracking and trembling foundation isn’t reason to do away with foundations.  Sure, it’s possible for ill-laid foundations to ruin the houses built upon them, but houses cannot stand without foundations.  Plus, many houses stand upon good foundations.  A cracking and trembling foundation means that something about the building process went wrong, perhaps in planning or execution.  It doesn’t follow that foundations should be rejected. 

Something else Unamuno said is that damnable disbelief lives is in a man’s heart, not his head.  I think this must be rather close to the truth, which is both comforting and disconcerting.  On the one hand, I’m glad Unamuno made the distinction, allowing it to be said that God doesn’t hate questioners.  It insults God to say that he wants mindless drones for his mindless drone army.  That doesn’t involve faith or trust of any kind.  God is smart, smart enough to make smart people, and he’s got enough personality to make personal beings.  It’s simply untrue that God would require men to sell their minds and repress their doubts in order to be with him.  That’s not trust, that’s fear.  God’s not like that.  On the other hand, it’s jarring to think that the problem of disbelief lies within the heart.  What is more unchangeable than a heart?  Information can change a mind, but what input can change a heart?  I think that even if it's nearly impossible, such a thing exists.