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How to Be an Existentialist
By the Same Author: Sartre: A Guide for the Perplexed Sartre and Fiction The Sartre Dictionary
Also available from Continuum: The Good, the True and the Beautiful, Michael Boylan How to Make Good Decisions and Be Right All the Time, Iain King How to Win Every Argument, Madsen Pirie Sex and Philosophy, Edward Fullbrook and Kate Fullbrook
Get a Grip and Stop Making Excuses Gary Cox .How to Be an Existentialist or How to Get Real.
C66 2009 142'.continuumbooks. and stop making excuses / Gary Cox. Title. ). NY 10038 www. ISBN: HB: 978-1-4411-8843-4 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Cox. Gary. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. get a grip. electronic or mechanical. Chennai. Bodmin. B819. Conduct of life. ISBN: 978-1-4411-8843-4 1. Cornwall . or any information storage or retrieval system. II. Existentialism. without prior permission in writing from the publishers. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means. get a grip. How to get real.78–dc22 2009005317 Typeset by Newgen Imaging Systems Pvt Ltd. 2.com © Gary Cox 2009 All rights reserved. Title: How to get real. including photocopying. or. p. and stop making excuses. I. cm. India Printed and bound in Great Britain by MPG Books Ltd. 1964How to be an existentialist. recording. Includes bibliographical references (p.Continuum International Publishing Group The Tower Building 80 Maiden Lane 11 York Road Suite 704 London SE1 7NX New York.
nausea and the Existential Alka-Seltzer of bad faith Moustaches and salauds 4 How to Be Authentic Authenticity and getting real Being-in-situation Freedom as a value The problem of being authentic 1 7 12 12 21 31 36 44 49 51 54 56 58 59 62 65 69 71 74 81 82 83 85 87 .Contents Introduction 1 What is an Existentialist? 2 What is Existentialism? Brief overview and quick history lesson Existentialism and consciousness Temporality Being-for-others Freedom and responsibility Freedom and disability Possible limits to freedom Freedom and anxiety 3 How Not to Be an Existentialist Bad faith is not self-deception Flirting and teasing Waiters. sincerity and transcendence Wilful ignorance Contingency. actors and attitudes Homosexuality.
vi Contents Authenticity and intelligence Authenticity and other people Nietzsche on authenticity – regret nothing Heidegger on authenticity – authentic being-towards-death 5 Existential Counselling Bibliography Further Reading Index 92 95 97 102 107 114 116 117 .
ever. I shouldn't assume your actions are so predictable. 'I am in here to buy a book. whatever anyone does. You have no intention of buying this book because there are. as everyone does. more important things to spend your money on than books. You. Your lover will expect you to treat them to a litre of designer coffee when that train gets in and Starbucks isn't cheap. after all. It is because you have free will.Introduction According to hard-line existentialists like Jean-Paul Sartre. short of falling off a cliff. that you have the potential to become a true existentialist. Shortly. even if you did so in the most idle and seemingly thoughtless way. because it is a slim volume whereas most books on existentialism you've . have chosen to pick up this book and open it.' Of course. if you're not one already that is. You are responsible for what you have done. Perhaps you are babysitting at a neighbour's house and having finally tucked their rug rat up in bed you have decided to check out their book collection to see how uncultured they are. Perhaps you are killing time in a bookshop while you wait for your lover to arrive on the three o'clock train. you will slip this book back on the shelf or the 3 for the price of 2 table display with that tiny grimace that says to anyone who might be spying on you. they choose to do it and are responsible for having done it. You have free will and will do as you choose. but that one isn't what I'm looking for. therefore. This book has caught your eye because you know a lot or a little about existentialism.
' Well. although equally intelligent – once said. because it has a practical sounding title and not one that is totally obscure and pretentious like Being and Time or Phenomenology of Perception. if only you can be bothered to read it all. by itself. Knowing a bit or even a lot about existentialism.2 How to Be an Existentialist ever seen are fat and heavy. To be a true existentialist you also have to try to live in a certain way. so if you want to get really deep into the theory of existentialism and possibly never surface again. but with a very clear purpose. With that kind of decisive attitude you are already well on your way to becoming a true existentialist. that society which has no membership fee unless it is your sanity and your very soul. a true existentialist wouldn't join a club that had members. make you an existentialist. Good. a few of which I have written myself. There are hundreds of other books that explain existentialism in far more philosophical detail. I've decided that a person can't be an existentialist unless he or she knows a bit about the philosophy or world-view of existentialism. Once all the preliminaries are out of the way the first thing this book tries to do is explain in as simple and straightforward a way as possible what existentialism is. however. 'I don't want to belong to any club that will accept me as a member. You've ripped open the bubble wrap lined envelope and dived straight in. You are looking for direction in your life and to that end you have decided to become an existentialist. check out the further reading section at the end of this book. to join that most peculiar and misunderstood of cults. or at least . You ordered it on the internet the other day using that much abused credit card and found it lying below the letter box a moment ago. that exclusive club which is comprised of the kind of independent minded people who never join clubs or follow the crowd. because it appears to offer you the opportunity to become something quite mysterious and special. Perhaps you haven't picked this book up in an idle and thoughtless way at all. will not. The comedian Groucho Marx – not to be confused with the philosopher Karl Marx. Having given it some thought.
Becoming an existentialist requires a certain amount of effort. social convention. is the question. religious dogma. eat this. the question to which all other philosophical questions lead. some of the most famous philosophers of existentialism were not in fact true existentialists at all. rather than living as though you were a robot programmed by other people. because although they knew a lot of theory they didn't live the life. The founders of Western philosophy. why it is a more honest.Introduction 3 adopt a certain attitude to life. your true 'nature'. The real difficulty is keeping it up. Unlike a religion. don't eat that. Plato and Aristotle. honest and uncompromising way what it is like to be a person passing through this weird and wild world. that you are really interested in. preachers. For this reason. follow all these petty rules and don't dare question them. Instead. maintaining what existentialists . It aims to show you what you really are when all the nonsense and bullshit that is talked at you by scientists. sustaining it. parents and school teachers is binned. existentialism does not say. the Ancient Greeks. It aims to reveal to you that you are a fundamentally free being so that you can start living accordingly. don't do that. they didn't practise what they preached. morality. as well as being about putting words like choice in italics. guilt and all the other age old forces of oppression. Perhaps the main value of having a working knowledge of existentialism as a philosophical theory is that you will hopefully understand why it makes sense to live according to the existentialist world-view. 'How should I live?'. so that you can start asserting your individual freedom. It is all about facing up to reality with honesty and courage and seeing things through to the end. guys like Socrates. thought that the most important philosophical question in the universe. death and other people. more dignified. Being an existentialist is definitely not just a matter of knowing stuff. Existentialism is all about freedom and personal choice. even a more moral way to live than other ways you might live. do this. 'How should I live?' If you are at all interested in becoming an existentialist then it is in fact the oldest and most important question in philosophy. it describes in a coherent.
An existentialist can stomach both uncertainty and hard truth. He never tries to convince himself for the sake of his peace of mind that some half-baked doctrine is true.' Well. Being an existentialist isn't even exactly a skill. Existentialists really hate. Or is it? To be honest I don't know. Jean-Paul Sartre. This book has a lot to say about authenticity and bad faith as they are at the heart of what existentialism and being an existentialist are all about. loathe and detest bad faith. Bad faith is a lot like what serious artists. Or is that a philosopher? Never mind. my books on the famous French existentialist. including yourself. call existentialism phenomenological ontology. an existentialist wouldn't give you anything for a little peace of mind unless what he got in return was also true. fixing cars or learning a foreign language. just as existentialism is a branch of philosophy. If you like fancy jargon. An existentialist – if I am one – always recognizes when he is not certain about something. The Beatles once sang. You can make your own mind up at the end of this book whether or not you think being an existentialist is a skill. say. did learn to speak French or German long before they became existentialists. Many existentialists. or more specifically. which is most philosophers. however. but more about bad faith and authenticity later on. musicians and rock stars call 'selling out'. then read my other more serious books on existentialism. 'You know I'd give you everything I've got for a little peace of mind. This is the second shameless plug for my other books in the space of this brief introduction. I don't want to dwell too much on the effort required to be an existentialist because it is not in fact as hard as. .4 How to Be an Existentialist call authenticity while everyone. wants you to give up like a big sissy and succumb to what existentialists call bad faith. and everything around you. Philosophers who have swallowed all the dictionaries in their university library. as far as more people do than will admit it. an existentialist is a type of philosopher. but I hope to avoid that kind of fancy jargon as much as possible in this lightweight and hopefully rather irresponsible book about responsibility and other such heavy matters.
'Do be do be do' – Frank Sinatra. At the heart of freedom is choice and at the heart of choice is action. or.' 'I did it because I got in with the wrong crowd. or more precisely. feel and act for the better. by asserting your will rather than simply allowing yourself to be swept along by circumstances. You could say we live in a blame culture. by acting rather than simply reacting. actually. Blaming other people for things you are actually responsible for yourself is very fashionable. 'To be is to do' says Sartre. real and imagined. Finally. for what you make of it and for what you do or don't do in response to it. Existentialism holds that you can only truly change the way you think and feel about your life by acting differently. have extracted a lot of mileage out of the whole withdrawn.Introduction 5 but then an existentialist – if I am one – should never be afraid of being too bold. So. for that matter. for reading it. The hope is that it will change the way you behave. Well. is at the heart of existentialism. too withdrawn. a blame everyone but myself culture. the way you act. is all about freedom. Some existentialists. Existentialism.' 'It's my teacher's fault I failed my exams even though I only turned up to half the lectures and bunked others early pretending I had a funeral. 'To be is to do. just as it is at the heart of human existence. If people know only one thing about existentialism it tends to be the maxim.' 'It was McDonald's fault my coffee was hot and I burnt my mouth when . but you are responsible for buying. or in ways you hope and expect. a disclaimer: If this book doesn't change the way you think. borrowing or stealing it. the hope is that it will do more than that. alienated thing. summing up just how important he considers action to be. 'I did it because of the way I was raised. then. then don't blame me! I am responsible for writing this book.' The first I ever heard of Sartre and existentialism was when a friend told me this awful but accurate joke: 'To be is to do' – Jean-Paul Sartre. as said. if you've read this far and plan to read on. Action. welcome to yet another self-help book that will change the way you think and feel about your life. by always taking responsibility for yourself and what you do.
for example.6 How to Be an Existentialist I drank it. . that is. I don't care – but remember what the existentialist philosophers say: to choose not to choose is still a choice for which you alone are responsible. it is only what people choose to do with ideas that might prove dangerous. even those books he hadn't written yet! But really. There are morbidly obese people waddling around out there who chose day after day to supersize themselves beneath the yellow arches who are now suing McDonald's for making them fat and unhealthy. or choose to do nothing – personally. In 1948. especially to the status quo and the powers that be. but it was. Choose to do with these ideas as you please. is and always will be extremely unexistentialist. but the customer is responsible for buying the coffee and drinking it. extremely inauthentic. the Catholic Church in its infinite wisdom decided that Jean-Paul Sartre's atheistic.' McDonald's are responsible for their coffee being hot. iconoclastic. and for a lot of other things besides. Relinquishing responsibility and blaming others for what you do is very fashionable. like governments and religions and other multinational corporations. Existentialism has often been accused of being a set of dangerous ideas. revolutionary existentialist ideas were so dangerous that they placed his entire works on the Vatican Index of Prohibited Books (the Index Librorum Prohibitorum). anti-authoritarian. there are no dangerous ideas.
A person. I am confident that by the end you will know what an existentialist is and what in broad terms it takes to become one. in a short definition. To that end I have written the longish chapter following this very short one. Accepting that the full meaning of existentialist is something that will emerge as we proceed. what an existentialist is and how a person becomes one are things that will emerge gradually during the course of this book. What is clear is that to fully understand what an existentialist is you need to understand what existentialism is. Sartre for example. Instead. Anyone who broadly subscribes to the theories and outlook of existentialism or attempts to live according to its principles.' In itself this definition doesn't tell us much. I'll begin by saying that to be a true existentialist a person has to fulfil three closely related critera: 1.1 What is an Existentialist? In The Sartre Dictionary I define the term existentialist as follows: 'Of or relating to the intellectual movement known as existentialism. It is useful only in relation to the two crossreferenced entries indicated in bold type and the further cross-referenced entries indicated in those entries and so on. not surprisingly 'What is Existentialism?' What an existentialist is can't really be explained just like that all at once in a few words. . whose work and ideas contribute to existentialism. titled. Friedrich Nietzsche. A person has to know a reasonable amount about the philosophy and world-view of existentialism as worked out over many years by various thinkers such as Arthur Schopenhauer. hence the inevitable inadequacy of the definition given above.
anti-authoritarian. This does not mean they have to slavishly agree with everything existentialism claims as though it were some religious dogma. I dare to say that a person who has studied existentialism in any detail and has gained a reasonably sound understanding of it could not reject it as outright nonsense because it is so plainly not nonsense. However.8 How to Be an Existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre. holistic thesis on the basis of certain undeniable facts or truths of the human condition. Samuel Beckett and Bugs Bunny. As Charles Dickens once said. so Bugs Bunny never helped to work out the theory of existentialism. building its comprehensive. Ok. for example. delivered while coolly crunching a stolen carrot. a person would not be an existentialist who knew about existentialism – having studied Camus or whoever – but rejected it all as total nonsense. hold that it is more or less correct. they can be as critical of it as they like because if there is one thing that existentialism encourages it is questioning and the spirit of criticism. shows he is never taken by surprise and is ready for anything that life or Elmer Fudd can throw at him. Albert Camus. 'There was a fitness of things in the whole that carried conviction with it' (Bleak House. People who reject existentialism tend to do so not because they don't understand it but because they can't face it. affirming his freedom and acting decisively on all occasions. p. 227). Simone de Beauvoir. Likewise. 2. Bugs has a truly authentic. As Nietzsche writes . His sneering. Existentialism is a fiercely honest philosophy that confronts human life for what it really is. there is a fitness of things. that makes it a very convincing and plausible philosophy. Short of rejecting it outright. a striking coherence of the various aspects of existentialism. A person has to believe the philosophy and world-view of existentialism to some extent. writing about an old lady's damning assessment of Mr Turveydrop. 'What's up Doc?'. but in accepting the reality of his situation. He is certainly not a rabbit caught in the headlights of onrushing life. such as the truth that everyone is mortal. existentialist-type attitude.
3. p. We live in a human world built on bad faith. yet most or all of the time fail to live accordingly. So. various distractions that seem to make everyday life more bearable. 107). but they are not a true existentialist if they make no effort to live the life. Otherwise. A person has to strive with some success to live and act in accordance with the findings and recommendations of existentialism. Bad faith is a certain kind of bad attitude and I'll explain it in due course.What is an Existentialist? 9 in Beyond Good and Evil: '"I do not like it. More about authenticity later. the true existentialist knows about existentialism. understanding existentialism requires far more intellectual honesty and courage than cleverness and academic ability. Bad faith offers convenient excuses. 185. we would be claiming that authenticity can only be achieved as the ultimate result of an intellectual exercise – as though you have to be able to read and study and have lots of time to swat to stand any chance of becoming authentic. although who would be surprised to discover he reads Nietzsche when he is not busy exercising his will to power over Elma? . let it suffice to say that bad faith can be very difficult to avoid. Interestingly. cop-outs and coping strategies. it seems it is quite possible for a person to be authentic without ever having heard of existentialism. Authenticity is the holy grail of existentialism. To fail to live accordingly is to live in what existentialist philosophers call bad faith." – Has anyone ever answered like this?' (Beyond Good and Evil. As will be seen. recognize the truth of it on an intellectual level. Bugs Bunny is such a one. It is quite possible for a person to know about existentialism. believes in existentialism and continually strives to live according to existentialism. For now. the great existentialist goal or ideal. He or she continually strives to overcome bad faith and to achieve what existentialist philosophers call authenticity. A person can know about existentialism and be convinced of its truth. Some people seem to hit on being authentic through their direct experience of life or because they choose to be particularly brave or genuinely philanthropic." – Why? – "I am not up to it.
however. the key point is that the journey towards authenticity can begin with learning about existentialism. be a process of profound personal enlightenment that influences the very nature of a person's way of existing in the world. and so the claim that profound personal enlightenment can result from the study of it sounds totally pretentious. a fixed entity. For Plato. but really they are not existentialists at all. the goal of studying philosophy is to gain knowledge of the highest truths. So. one of many subjects a person can do a course in at college or university. Plato firmly believes that the person who is truly able to distinguish reality from appearance will live accordingly. a person who thinks like this or has this attitude is in fact in bad faith. Like Platonism. true existentialists. they just get on with throwing themselves into whatever they do without self-consciousness. they are simply what academics who have studied existentialism describe as authentic. such admirable rabbits. For the Ancient founders of Western philosophy. although its view of reality is radically different. for example. Studying existentialism can. Philosophy is often seen simply as an ivory tower intellectual subject with no bearing on real life. For the reader of this book who hopes to achieve authenticity. will cease to live a lie. misgivings or regret. therefore. an authentic-thing. For reasons that will become clear. Studying existentialism highlights the basic. however. It is not actually at all authentic for a person to think he is authentic. but it is not possible to be a true existentialist without striving hard to be authentic. achieving enlightenment is the ultimate aim of studying philosophy. existential truths of the human condition. it is possible to be authentic without being an existentialist. it exposes bad faith and emphasizes the necessity of freedom and responsibility. . inescapable. Armed with these truths a person has the power to recognise the difference between reality and mere appearance.10 How to Be an Existentialist We might call such people. Many people have been inspired to pursue authenticity as a direct result of studying existentialism. The person who declares 'I am authentic' thinks he is something. They don't describe themselves as authentic because they don't think of themselves in that way.
What is an Existentialist? 11 existentialism also offers enlightenment and a way out of the deep. dark cave of ignorance. . a way of seeing what is so rather than what only appears to be so.
a very existential. Philosophy is largely about dumping those assumptions overboard and backing carefully out of the shallow waters of the conceptual shit creek into the deep open ocean of the open mind. hopefully. an obscure. It is the done thing to mention the Ancient Greek philosopher Socrates at this point. but a very real. especially to begin with. shit creek! Well. To go forwards you generally have to go backwards. that life is not a conceptual. there's . Anyway. from out there on the open ocean you will glimpse the mouth of the broad estuary that leads to the truth. Socrates said that philosophy is a peculiar practice because it builds by destroying and what it destroys is assumptions.2 What is Existentialism? Brief overview and quick history lesson It is interesting that thinking about what an existentialist is and how to be one has almost immediately taken us backwards to thinking about what existentialism is. This is because when people start thinking about anything in any great depth they usually start halfway up some very shallow. overgrown place they've drifted into over the years as a result of making various assumptions they haven't thought through. incidentally. That's how it is with philosophy. very muddy conceptual shit creek. The truth being.
which they like to hold up. The British and Americans have always largely pooped the wild. Not from writing The Family Idiot but from blood pressure due to general over-indulgence. especially the most radical existentialist ones like Nietzsche and Sartre. whatever the poets say. Obviously. artists. their comfy slippers. existentialism is too broad and lacks philosophical rigour. novelists. with at least one Dane and a few Irishmen thrown in for good measure. vast unfinished monster into English. 40). dramatists. to put it simply. what is existentialism? Well. totally happening existentialist party on the grounds that. but as a more sensible. So.What is Existentialism? 13 no reason why the truth should be bright and shiny. musicians. in their opinion. To quote Nietzsche – always the most quotable philosopher – they definitely 'prefer a handful of "certainty" to a cartful of beautiful possibilities' (Beyond Good and Evil. not exactly in opposition to continental philosophizing. as rather uncouth and grotesque with their big ideas about life. Sartre once wrote a 2801 page book in three volumes called The Family Idiot and even at that length it wasn't finished! He intended to write a fourth volume but he went blind. They see continental philosophers. They prefer to stay at home with their tobacco only pipes. a nice cup of tea and what they call analytical philosophy. comedians and assorted drop outs that developed in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and remains influential today. . We only know The Family Idiot wasn't finished because Sartre told us. film makers. They like to bang on endlessly about logic and meaning in language – not that continental philosophers are indifferent to these things – while they contrive to say a great deal about as little as possible in the driest manner imaginable. except a very patient lady at The University of Chicago called Carol who translated the whole. psychologists. Most existentialist philosophers are in fact French or German. p. 10. love. sex and death and their even bigger books. sober. straight-laced alternative. nobody has actually read all the way to page 2801. existentialism is a broad intellectual movement of largely continental philosophers.
but indeterminate. ambiguous beings in constant process of becoming and change. So why? Well. crazy world without bullshitting or pulling any punches. if all this isn't bad enough. despite heaping up this long. existentialism is ultimately a positive. This leads us to suffer such irksome emotions as guilt. Ironically. You have to build your life on an understanding and acceptance of how things really are. Strange to say. especially anxiety about our being-for-others. The fundamental or existential truths of the human condition according to existentialism are as follows: None of us are fixed entities like chairs or stones. In short. Existentialism is primarily concerned with providing a coherent description of the human condition that fully recognizes and incorporates the fundamental or existential truths relating to that condition. That is.14 How to Be an Existentialist The existentialist movement is defined by its shared concerns rather than by a set of common principles to which all existentialist thinkers subscribe. The general idea is that you can't create a genuinely honest and worthwhile life for yourself on the basis of a fairytale. because it outlines how you can go on to live an honest and worthwhile life in spite of the fact that human existence is ultimately pointless and absurd. guilt and anxiety. shame and embarrassment. anti-nihilistic philosophy! I kid you not. we are doomed to die from the moment we are born into a meaningless universe where God is at least very elusive and at most downright non-existent. or at least be happier. grim list. existentialism tells how it basically is for all of us in this tough. We are all free and can't stop being free. otherwise you will always be fooling and deluding yourself as you hanker after impossibilities like complete happiness and total fulfilment. if you want to be happy. our anxiety about what other people think of us. And. although there are principles common to many of them. We are all responsible for our actions and our lives are fraught with desire. optimistic. . stop struggling to achieve complete happiness because that way only leads to disappointment. existentialism is saying.
Many people have the silly idea. not only because the price of cottages in the country is beyond most people's financial reach. that there is such a state as 'happily ever after'. they will it. Oh. compares human existence to . So. They are constantly hurt and frustrated that they never manage. They yearn for a life of perfect happiness that is impossible. the life that no one has. Existentialists are nihilists because they recognize that life is ultimately absurd and full of terrible. but because summer afternoons in the real world always turn to evening. my cat spends everyday of his life patrolling the garden. it is inauthentic to wish you were something else. adverts and glossy magazines. the existentialist philosopher. gleaned from movies. Such a paradise is unachievable. and never gets bored. that life is perfectible. but he is a cat not a human. they feel dissatisfied with the life they have or even downright cheated out of the life they think they deserve but don't have. to be a cat! But be careful. In a philosophical essay he wrote called The Myth of Sisyphus. or rather death. Actually. They recognize that each person is free to create themselves and make something worthwhile of themselves by striving against life's difficulties. Life. They are anti-nihilists because they recognize that life does in fact have a meaning: the meaning each person chooses to give his or her own existence. especially when it is impossible to be what you wish to be.What is Existentialism? 15 Some of the most unhappy people in the world are those who hold firmly to the false belief that complete happiness is achievable. but what matters is the striving. they actively strive to change themselves. True existentialists never wish they were something else. the journey. realistic action. to transform their life into an endless summer afternoon in a rose filled cottage garden. Albert Camus. will win in the end. because roses have thorns and their flowers wilt and because more than a few days in even the most beautiful garden becomes utterly boring. for example. while failing to take control of the life they do have and make it more rewarding through decisive. the overcoming. his garden. The idea that other people out there somewhere have achieved the perfect life. inescapable truths.
All of them were concerned with what we have been calling 'the truths of the human condition'. This is an embarrassing fact that always has to be dealt with first whenever Heidegger's name comes up. not because he was older and German but because. Simone de Beauvoir. Camus asks if life is worth living given that it is as absurd and ultimately futile as the plight of Sisyphus. If you think this is not a very optimistic conclusion then it is up to you to come up with a more optimistic conclusion that isn't based on false assumptions about the way life really is. who.16 How to Be an Existentialist the plight of the mythical figure Sisyphus who is condemned forever to push a large boulder to the top of a hill only to watch it roll down again. The concerns of Kierkegaard. The last four in this list all knew each other and hung out together in bohemian Parisian cafés drinking cheap wine and smoking Gauloises. a person can still create a sense of purpose through the struggle itself and through the way he plays life's game. Heidegger didn't hang out with any of them. To be precise. It was the Danish maverick Christian philosopher Søren Kierkegaard and the atheist and romantic philosophers. in refusing the ever-present possibility of suicide. They would have shunned him if he'd tried to. In choosing to live. Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Albert Camus (pronounced Camoo). In choosing to live his life rather than end it a person takes on responsibility for his life. he was a one-time member of the German National . a person confers value and significance on a life that has no value or significance in itself. set the agenda for what later became known as existentialism. Jean-Paul Sartre. who coined the phrase 'existence philosophy'. Camus' seemingly pessimistic account of the existential truths of the human condition yields an optimistic conclusion: although life's struggle has no ultimate purpose and always the same final result. a conclusion that isn't just a naïve fairytale or a wish list when you get to the bottom of it. he was a bit of a Nazi. Arthur Schopenhaur and Friedrich Nietzsche. and by Martin Heidegger. unfortunately. in their different ways. Schopenhaur and Nietzsche were taken up during the first half of the twentieth century by Karl Jaspers (pronounced Yaspers).
like chairs and stones. At the heart of their system is the wonderful maxim 'existence precedes essence'. rather than a text you peck out on your mobile phone. Sartre and the rest established existentialism as a distinct branch of philosophy. God-given. and there is nothing beyond the series of particular things other than consciousness. 'Man's nature is to have no nature. A person's essence is to have no essence other than the one he must continually invent for himself. His national socialism is always hard to accommodate with the fact that he wrote Being and Time. abstract. now that would be an achievement. It encapsulates a view fundamentally opposed to idealism that there are no ideal. Texting Being and Time. There are particular things. 'existence precedes essence' refers to the view that each person exists first. I was keen to discuss with him some ideas I had about . It is not gender specific. man here means men and women and is not singling out men.What is Existentialism? 17 Socialist Party although he left in 1934. People who object to the use of the term man in this kind of context show their essential ignorance and petty mindedness. The ideas of these philosophers converge to form a largely coherent system of thought. metaphysical essences giving reality or meaning to particular things. This maxim is generally attributed to Sartre who certainly uses it in a short book he wrote in 1946 called Existentialism and Humanism. which is nothing but consciousness of particular things. often said. As Sartre's part-time girlfriend and long-time intellectual sparing partner.' Now. More on the nothingness of consciousness later. The writings of Heidegger. one of the great texts of existentialism. before anyone gets on their feminist high horse. Back in the days when sociology and the other social sciences were busy inventing political correctness I had a very tedious argument with a very politically correct sociologist about the use of the terms man and mankind. otherworldly. Text as in book. and strives thereafter to give himself meaning and purpose. without meaning or purpose. With specific regard to people. that is. Simone de Beauvoir.
'Man's nature is to have no nature. it was Simone de Beauvoir herself who said. Existentialism is a broad church (though not a wide Gothic building) that includes religious thinkers like Paul Tillich. In short. is anti-idealist. I just momentarily gave way to a sudden urge to jump on the creaking.18 How to Be an Existentialist Marxism before I taught them to the students we shared. like the great Dane Kierkegaard. they are a pretty obscure bunch outside of equally obscure university Theology departments so you don't need to worry about them. A person who supposes that his meaning comes ready-made or that there is an ultimate purpose to human existence established externally by a deity or deities is deluded and a coward in face of reality. Mainstream existentialism. highly lucrative bandwagon of poorly researched. Anyway. anti-metaphysical and atheistic. Any meaning that is to be found in this world must be established by each person from within the sphere of his own individual existence. Martin Buber. for example. but our conversation got stuck on the use of the word man and never went any further. even if she did allow Sartre to slap her around a bit! Actually. then. Karl Barth and Gabriel Marcel and atheist thinkers like the novelist and playwright Samuel Beckett. Fyodor Dostoevsky.' and she practically invented feminism. The brilliant Russian novelist. . As indicated. is evidently. biographies claiming that at best they bit the heads of chickens for kicks and at worst were Nazi collaborators. He wasn't big enough for a start. it's totally untrue that Sartre slapped de Beauvoir around. Anyway. overloaded. not all thinkers who deserve existentialist credentials will endorse all of these viewpoints. I've spared you the pronunciations of the names of this lot as I'm not sure I know how to pronounce them all myself. not an atheist. with the notable exception of Beckett. It sees mankind as occupying an indifferent universe that is meaningless to the point of absurdity. sensationalist biographies about Sartre and de Beauvoir. clearly an existentialist thinker in many respects. he is an ignorant dork who needs to grow up and get real.
preferring 'philosophy of existence' or that old mouthful phenomenological ontology. initially rejected the term. Existentialism. while the psychiatrist R. Maybe it was even Shakespeare who invented existentialism. I said in my introduction that being an existentialist requires a certain amount of effort. I'm in two minds about recommending it to you as by the time you've finished reading it you'll be worrying you've got all the symptoms. So. the Italian director who had Marlon Brando do unspeakable things with butter in Last Tango in Paris. D. has been around a lot longer than the term itself. Becoming an existentialist is not for the weakminded or the faint-hearted. Laing wrote a brilliant book about schizophrenia and psychosis called The Divided Self: An Existential Study in Sanity and Madness. I'll say.' Not being weak-minded or faint-hearted you won't be phased when I tell you that so far this chapter has only provided an overview of existentialism. If you find such praise patronizing. for people who give up at the first hurdle. the background to it and a short history lesson in it. well done and all that. probably the most famous existentialist of all. we've still got miles to yomp to the end of the trail with our eighty-pound loads. By reading this far you have proved you are not the sort of person who gives up at the first hurdle. explores many existentialist themes in his films. Laing defines the mental conditions of psychosis and schizophrenia in existentialist terms. this mortal coil. We need to dig down deeper to where the ground gets that much harder in order to . is profoundly existentialist. Shakespeare. I did and so did I! Laing appears to have written The Divided Self partly as a way of generating more clients. Sartre.' As the British Royal Marines and Parachute Regiment say. as many would-be existentialists will. particularly the mature Shakespeare of the great tragedies like Hamlet and King Lear and all that really heavy stuff.What is Existentialism? 19 Bernardo Bertolucci. 'Get your arse in gear soldier. but never shy of a bit of self-promotion Sartre soon adopted it in face of popular insistence on it. 'Remember the long march across The Falklands. as a way of viewing the human condition. You have certainly cleared a few hurdles to get to here.
does Simone de Beauvoir claim that man's nature is to have no nature.' cartoons. . Immanuel Kant.' 'Love is the demand to be loved. It is a wonderful. and what does it mean to say consciousness is nothing in itself? Despite what its harshest critics say. And a big influence on Kant was the Scottish philosopher David Hume. profound theory full of initially absurd sounding paradoxes that get more obviously true the more you think about them.20 How to Be an Existentialist discover why existentialism makes the claims it makes and what these claims really mean. 'Love is sharing your gloves. Some people may know the 'Love is . existentialism is a largely coherent theory of the human condition rooted in the best traditions of Western philosophy. equally German successor. Why. it is existentialism. and his equally brilliant. it is the phenomenological theory of consciousness that underpins all the other claims that existentialism makes about time. Tell that to the next person who asks you what existentialism is: 'Existentialism is a theory of consciousness. the second one is Sartre's.' In fact. He wrote it in 1943. So. badges and T-shirts founded in the sixties by Kim and still going strong. George Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. freedom. for example. bad faith. authenticity and so on. posters. . In a sense. it is this theory of consciousness that we must look at. Above all. So maybe he influenced Kim's famous . none of whom understand it properly anyway. It is certainly possible to identify phenomenological type ideas in Hume. Existentialism is in fact only a branch or a development of a philosophical theory called phenomenology which can certainly be traced back to Hegel and to some extent Kant as well. It is really all based on a theory of the nature of human consciousness the origins of which can be traced back to the brilliant German philosopher. when looking for the source of phenomenology it is not possible to implicate Hegel without implicating Kant. there are lots of things that existentialism is.' Actually. it is the key to understanding existentialism. No philosopher operates in a vacuum and every philosopher owes something to his predecessors. and so it goes back into the mists of time. personal relations. Anyway. Not surprisingly then.
Being and Nothingness – the nothingness referred to in the title being consciousness. which translates more accurately as Being and Non-being but Being and Nothingness is now so well established as the work's enigmatic sounding English title that it is unlikely any publisher would ever dare mess with it. he called his greatest book.' 'Existentialism is not that heavy really. feel it passing quickly or slowly. a nothingness or a non-being. For example. three . This is a startling claim and is likely to sound ridiculous at first. expectation or anxiety. . to be precise. but stay with the idea as it makes perfect sense when you get used to it. as we say. or what philosophers call corporeal. Numbers too play a huge part in our lives but they are not material. atoms or whatever it is material things are made of deep down at the tiniest level.What is Existentialism? 21 cartoon series. Sartre was so convinced that consciousness is nothing in itself that he called his greatest book on existentialism. In trying to make sense of the claim that consciousness is nothing. A child can hold a bright green plastic number 3 in his hand but he is not holding three itself.' 'Existentialism is heavy stuff. .' 'Existentialism is not for the faint hearted. Quite a few formulations would neatly complete a sentence beginning 'Existentialism is. but I can't grasp a handful of it or stick a pin in it. is time a thing? I can measure time with a clock and even. it is nothing in itself. L'Etre et le néant. The same can be said for what are commonly called states of mind.': 'Existentialism is a theory of the human condition. it is nothing. or what most existentialist philosophers prefer to call consciousness. Actually.' Existentialism and consciousness The mind. you have to begin by accepting that not everything that comprises this amazing universe of ours is made of stuff. . Existentialism is a bit like 'Love is .'. In fact. like belief. It is real enough but it is not a thing. matter. . is not a thing. or to be more precise. .
How to Be an Existentialist
itself is not green and plastic. Surely, that green plastic thing in his little hand is only a symbol of the abstract idea or concept of three, a thought that is the same for all thinking creatures anywhere in the universe whether they symbolize three as trois, 3 or . And the same can be said for other mathematical symbols, +, –, = and so on. The = sign does not indicate a thing called equivalence that you can hold in your hand, it indicates a relationship between two or more things . . . That's as far as I'll go with the maths examples as I don't want to turn readers off who have an aversion to maths. You may be relieved to know that existentialism doesn't have a great deal to do with maths and you certainly don't need to be good at maths to become an existentialist. All I am doing with these maths examples is pointing out a whole vast area of reality – the world of maths – that isn't material. Training shoes, tug boats and adhesive tape are material objects, whereas equivalence is a relationship. A philosopher was once asked what different kinds of entities are in the world. He replied, 'Things and relations'. Consciousness definitely falls into the second category. It is a relationship rather than a material thing. Another philosopher who was asked the same question replied, 'Things and chaps'. He was an ex boys private school type and probably didn't know many women, but his 'things and chaps' makes the all-important point that on the one hand the world contains objects and on the other hand subjects or consciousnesses. Some scientific minded people who want to over-simplify the world and reduce everything to the behaviour of small physical particles will argue that consciousness is a brain state, that it is just millions of electrochemical reactions in the brain. Now, we have to tread a bit carefully here. In arguing that consciousness is nothing in itself, that it is a relationship rather than a thing, existentialists are not claiming that consciousness exists, or can exist, without the brain. Consciousness must be what existentialists call embodied. Rather boringly perhaps, they don't go in for the idea of free-floating consciousnesses, out of body experiences, ghosts and all the rest of it. Consciousness requires brain
What is Existentialism?
and, as the evidence of life strongly suggests, if you destroy the brain you destroy the consciousness. However, this is not to say that consciousness is just brain activity; that consciousness is reducible to brain activity. When you see a certain area of neurons lit up and active on a brain scanner you are not seeing a person's thoughts. All you know is that these neurons become active when he thinks of cream cakes and desires them. And if you delved into his brain you would not find his thoughts of distant mountains or his expectation of travelling there soon, and certainly you would not find a little picture of mountains inside his skull. All you would find, if you could see anything at all with all that blood, is a folded lump of greyish fat. This is because his desires, his thoughts, his expectations – although he can't have them without having a brain inside his head – are not things inside his head! They are aspects of his relationship with the world. His desire is not just x, y, z neuron firing pattern but desire of that cream cake there on the plate in front of him. His thoughts are of mountains. If I think of mountains I am not looking at a little picture of mountains inside my brain with what is called my mind's eye, I am thinking of and intending mountains out there in the world. If I have a feeling of expectation with regard to the mountains it is because I am expecting to go there. If expectation was just a chemical state of my brain then I could feel expectant without actually expecting anything, which is surely impossible. 'I expect my brother to arrive here in five minutes even though I know he is on the other side of the world right now!' It just doesn't make sense does it? A person feels expectant because he has an expectation of something. So, desire is desire of something, thoughts are thoughts of something, expectation is expectation of something and so on. These are all ways of saying that consciousness is not reducible to brain states, that it is nothing in itself, that it is primarily a relationship to the world of which it is conscious. Phenomenologists – the broader group of philosophers to which existentialists belong – sum all this up
How to Be an Existentialist
with the maxim 'consciousness is consciousness of __'. In that big book, Being and Nothingness, which some people call the bible of existentialism, Sartre writes: 'To say that consciousness is consciousness of something means that for consciousness there is no being outside of that precise obligation to be a revealing intuition of something' (Being and Nothingness, p. 17). The view that consciousness is consciousness of __ is known as the theory of intentionality. The theory of intentionality was first thought up by a German psychologist called Franz Brentano and developed by another German, Edmund Husserl. Phenomenology is like a Mediterranean hotel, lots of Germans, although these Germans spent their time up in their rooms writing rather than down by the pool hogging the sun-loungers with their big towels. Husserl was not exactly an existentialist but his ideas about consciousness had a huge influence on two of the biggest existentialists of all, Heidegger and Sartre. It is fair to say that Husserl was Sartre's biggest single influence. As a young man in 1933 Sartre went to Germany for several months to study the philosophy of Husserl, and in 1937 he even wrote a book called The Transcendence of the Ego dedicated to an analysis of Husserl's philosophy of mind. The theory of intentionality states that consciousness is intentional, it always intends something, it is always directed towards something, it is always about something. Some modern philosophers even refer to the intentionality of consciousness as the aboutness of consciousness. Just as a reflection in a mirror is nothing beyond what it reflects, nothing in itself, so consciousness is nothing beyond what it is about and directed towards. The theory of intentionality implies that because consciousness is always of or about something and nothing beyond that, any attempt to investigate consciousness always leads immediately to an investigation of whatever consciousness is of or about. Phenomenologists, including existentialists, seek to understand consciousness by investigating the way in which different phenomena, different intentional objects, appear to consciousness. An intentional object is whatever consciousness is about, be it perceived, imagined, believed or felt.
for example. So. appears small. As he so clearly states right at the start of Being and Nothingness. It is worth noting Sartre's position on this. different sides appear and disappear. The same things can be said of the pen as was said for love. Its shape appears differently as its orientation changes. For his part. Things must be reduced to their appearances in order to be understood correctly.What is Existentialism? 25 Love. arguing that although appearances appear to us. When turned. its colour alters with the light. are collections of appearances to consciousness. The startling conclusion to be drawn from all this is that phenomena. a pen. a collection of appearances to consciousness. These appearances are not manifestations of an underlying love in itself. his feelings of desire when he thinks of her. is an intentional object. it is an intentional object (in this case an intentional psychic object) comprised of David's happiness when he sees Victoria. they exist as they appear to us independently of us. More often. A mug. It makes a sound as it is thrown back on the desk. is a collection of appearances to us. for "to appear" . the positive things he says about her. There is no pen in itself beyond the various shifting appearances that we collectively describe as this pen. drinking from it. Sartre seems at times to want to resist the startling conclusion regarding appearances. Far away. his wish or intention to help and protect Victoria and so on. touching it. David's love of Victoria does not exist as such. 'Relative the phenomenon remains. according to Brentano and Husserl and their many phenomenologist followers. There is no love in itself beyond the various appearances that we collectively describe as David's love of Victoria. they are the love. for example. for example. insisting that appearances must appear to someone in order to have any reality as appearances. Close up it appears large. things are actually just collections of appearances. all the different kinds of physical and non-physical things which comprise the world. however. he is less of a realist about appearances. a collection of appearances to consciousness. but it is also out there 'being a mug' quite independently of anyone looking at it. A physical object is also an intentional object.
How to Be an Existentialist
supposes in essence somebody to whom to appear' (Being and Nothingness, p. 2). In short, mugs only exist as mugs when appearing to someone. When Sartre argues like this he comes across as a so-called transcendental idealist in the style of the great German philosopher, Immanuel Kant. Kant is to philosophy what Rome is to geography, all roads lead to him sooner or later. In lots of places in his writings Sartre argues that when there is no consciousness present on the scene there is only what he calls undifferentiated being. This undifferentiated being just is, and that is really all that can be said about it. It has no properties, no features, no characteristics. It is even more bland than daytime TV. It doesn't even have a past or a future. Philosophers often argue about whether or not a falling tree makes a noise when there is nobody around to hear it. Well, if there is only undifferentiated being when there is no consciousness around then when there is no consciousness around there aren't even any individual trees to fall and make a noise. There is no individual anything! Sartre argues that undifferentiated being is differentiated and divided up into distinct phenomena by consciousness. Consciousness, he says, is a nothingness or a negation that places particular negations, negativities, lacks and absences into undifferentiated being that, so to speak, carve it up into particular phenomena – this as distinct from that, this as not that, this as external to that, here as not there, then as not now and so on. In an excellent and much used book he wrote called Using Sartre, Professor Gregory McCulloch, a teacher of mine way back in the mists of time, summarizes Sartre's position as follows: 'Sartre seems committed to the view that the non-conscious world is, in itself, a "fullness" or "plenitude", an undifferentiated mass of porridge-like stuff which is moulded into the known world by us' (Using Sartre, p. 115). Fair point professor, but compared with Sartre's undifferentiated being, porridge is positively rich in properties . . . in appearances. This is obviously radical if not complicated stuff but the key point to take away is that Sartre, like Kant, is saying that the world of phenomena
What is Existentialism?
we are aware of is a synthesis of whatever is 'out there' and the activity of consciousness upon whatever is 'out there'. We are not just passive observers of the world. The world we know is a product of the intimate relationship that exists between consciousness and being. In the words of the Ancient Greek philosopher Protagoras, 'Man is the measure of all things.' You may be thinking that we seem to have drifted a long way from the high road into a lot of obscure, pointless, high-falutin' philosophical speculation. You may be starting to wonder what all this philosophical bobbing and weaving has to do with the main agenda of becoming an existentialist. Well, first, to be an existentialist, you need to know what existentialism is about, and this is exactly what it is about when it comes to the subject of consciousness. Most importantly though, in showing that we are not just passive observers of the world, that we are the measure of all things and so on, Sartre and the rest are showing us that the world, our world, is constantly subject to our active interpretation of it. We constantly encounter a world characterized and defined by the motives, intentions and attitudes we choose to have and the evaluations we choose to make. This is not to say that the world is anything we wish it to be, far from it, but it is to say that there is a very real sense in which the world for each person is a product of the attitude with which he or she approaches it. This realization is, or should be, enormously empowering. Personal empowerment is right at the top of the existentialist agenda. There used to be a car advert on TV saying 'Confidence is everything', and it is the kind of cliché you see on work place motivational posters that are meant to inspire employees to shuffle more paper or produce more goods. You know, the kind that picture tug-o-war teams with the word 'TEAMWORK' or a salmon swimming up stream with the word 'PERSEVERANCE' or George W. Bush with the words 'YOU DON'T HAVE TO BE TOP OF THE CLASS TO BE TOP OF THE HEAP'. The picture for 'CONFIDENCE IS EVERYTHING' might well be a tightrope walker, as a tightrope walker must think positively and remain confident or he will fall off.
How to Be an Existentialist
The person who chooses to be positive and confident or, at least, genuinely tries to be positive and confident, will encounter a very different world from the person who chooses to be negative and timid. *** According to Sartre and other existentialist philosophers, differentiated being, the richly varied world of phenomena we all inhabit, is grounded or based on consciousness, or at least, upon the negations, lacks and absences that consciousness places into being. In other words, phenomena are not grounded or based on being but on particular lacks or privations of being. Particular privations of being occur when, for example, being is questioned. The relationship of consciousness to the world is very much characterized by a questioning attitude. This attitude is not just the capacity to judge that something is lacking but the constant expectation of a discovery of lack or non-being. If I look to see if my cake is baked, for example, it is because I consider it possible that it is not baked. Even supposing there are cakes apart from consciousness of them, a cake can only be 'not baked' for a consciousness that experiences the cake in the mode of not yet being what it will be in future. The cake does not lack being baked for itself, it lacks being baked for a consciousness that has desires and expectations regarding it. The following example of an acorn and an oak tree helps to make clear what existentialists understand by lack: In itself an acorn lacks nothing, it is simply what it is. In order to understand it as a potential oak tree it must be judged in terms of the oak tree that is presently lacking. The meaning of the acorn is based on the non-being of the oak tree as that which the acorn presently lacks. The acorn itself does not lack the oak tree. The acorn lacks the oak tree only for a consciousness that is capable of projecting forward in time beyond the acorn towards the not-yet-being or non-being of the oak tree. It is the nonbeing of the oak tree that gives the acorn its meaning for consciousness. For consciousness the acorn exists in the manner of being the non-being of the oak tree. As a meaningful phenomenon, the acorn is understood as what it is by virtue of what it lacks.
A person will always interpret a situation in terms of what it lacks for him. not the car itself. his meal lacks being eaten. hopes. it is my purposes that lack a functioning car. If one of my car tyres is flat it is I. What a situation lacks is what I lack. If he is tired he lacks sleep (tiredness is lack of sleep). . according to existentialist philosophers. porridge-like being so giving rise to differentiated being. are given to it by the person for whom it is a situation. If he has just awoken and is ready for the day he lacks the things he hopes to achieve that day and so on and so on. Every situation a person encounters is understood as presently lacking something desired. negativities. negation. The lacks that make it a situation. If he is eating. More to the point. a person. they arise for consciousness when consciousness places particular negations into undifferentiated. In technical terms we can say. a consciousness. lack. it lacks something only for the person whose situation it is. Consciousness is always predisposed to find something lacking because lack is intrinsic to the very meaning of every situation for any particular consciousness. A person interprets every situation according to his desires. that give it future possibilities and so on. This is why. expected. that lacks four good tyres. In itself a situation is a fullness of being. In more down-to-earth terms we can say. it lacks nothing. the situation of someone. can never be completely satisfied. expectations and intentions. intended or anticipated. the situation in itself does not lack anything. phenomena are grounded not upon being but upon non-being. but in itself it is precisely not a situation because to be a situation it must be a situation for someone. a situation is always understood not in terms of what it is but in terms of what it lacks for the person encountering it. If he is half way through a movie the movie lacks an ending so far. As said.What is Existentialism? 29 Consciousness constantly introduces non-being. If he is cooking. absence into the world in order to make sense of it and to act purposefully within it. his meal lacks being cooked. If the movie is poor and he does not care about the ending then his situation lacks interest.
a past with its own absent future. Paul Valéry is no longer here. Sartre – he often has the best examples – describes the experience of discovering that his friend Pierre is absent from the café where he has arranged to meet him (Being and Nothingness. This existential absence is distinct from an abstract and purely formal absence that is merely thought. creatures that can never become one with themselves. It seems that the endless march of time constantly cheats us of what we are. so you would be wrong to get depressed about it. the future which gives meaning to his present actions and beyond which he hopes in vain to be fulfilled and at one with himself.' Closely linked to the phenomenon of existential lack is the phenomenon of existential absence. on the ground of which Pierre is given as about to appear' (Being and Nothingness. 'Wellington is not in this café. p. 'When I enter this café to search for Pierre.' (Being and Nothingness. as the person Sartre expects to find. there is formed a synthetic organisation of all the objects in the café. p. You will always be waiting for some current problem to become a thing of the past. pp. He or she says. an absent future that will fall into the past as soon as it is reached. 33–35). the only possibility. You will always experience some lack. towards a future that is presently lacking. Never mind. prevents us from becoming one with ourselves. etc. Perhaps this is the harshest of all the existential truths of the human condition. . 34). my freedom. the endless march of time. some boredom. Pierre. although many people do. I'm still going to make the most of my life. left to you. it is just the way it is. but really.30 How to Be an Existentialist In general. a person always lacks the future towards which he is constantly heading. what we are is this endless march forward in time. This is not a bad thing. is existentially absent. A true existentialist doesn't get depressed about it. my relentless journey to nowhere. 'Ok. so that's the way it is. Ever onward. some dissatisfaction. 33). you will always be looking for future fulfilment until death is the only fulfilment.
Pierre's absence from the café. in the manner of not being the presence of whatever is desired. alcohol. The addict's entire world is reduced to not being heroin. Think about this next time you are in Starbucks waiting for your friend to turn up. You might also want to dwell on why existentialists always seem to end up in cafés. but in the reduction of the whole world to a dull background that has no other significance or value than to be the perpetual affirmation of the drug's absence. lies not so much in the loss of the pleasure the drug gave. coffee. A person's entire world can exist in the mode of the negative. Nothing interests or inspires a withdrawing addict except their absent fix. chocolate. base jumping. The misery of missing someone or something is rooted in this negating of the world. unlike Queen Victoria's. for example. Temporality Time or temporality has been lurking in the background of a lot of what has been said so far. The misery of withdrawing psychologically from a drug. Even things that have no direct association with their fix refer the addict to their fix simply because they are not their fix. the universe and everything. It is useful to take a closer look at what phenomenologists and existentialists say about temporality. on-line gambling or whatever their personal fix happens to be. nicotine. but that non-being belongs to the very nature of the world as it is for consciousness. as in many ways a proper understanding of time and the so-called temporality of consciousness is the key to understanding the whole existentialist philosophy of life. .What is Existentialism? 31 The distinction between existential and formal absence emphasizes that non-being does not arise simply through judgements made by consciousness after encountering the world. is not merely thought. His absence is an actual event at the café that characterizes the café as the place from which Pierre is absent.
. Existentialists refer to this constant temporal motion of consciousness as temporal transcendence. Certainly. p. So. It is in constant temporal motion away from its past towards its future. already we have entertained the idea of consciousness existing as a relation to something that it isn't. something we are all very familiar with. never knowing all the wonderful insights they have missed. Sartre himself says. essentially temporalized. human reality is constituted as a being which is what it is not and which is not what it is' (Being and Nothingness. this paradox does appear absurd on the face of it. How on earth can something be what it is not and not be what it is? Well. Many people. including trained philosophers. surpasses and flees what it is – what it was – towards . of it being dependent for its borrowed being on what it is not. Consciousness is not just in time like an object getting older with every day that passes. we have already seen that consciousness is nothing in itself. Consciousness does not hop from one present moment to the next. this apparent excursion to Loonyville. . 86). are so shocked and outraged by this paradox.32 How to Be an Existentialist When a person takes a deep breath and knuckles down to the challenge of reading Sartre's Being and Nothingness – the philosophical equivalent of swimming the English Channel only more taxing on the brain – he or she finds that the following paradox keeps cropping up in various forms: The being of consciousness is not to be what it is and to be what it is not. The present for consciousness is only its presence to the world as a being constantly flowing forward in time. However. so much so that there is really no such moment as the present. it is. Consciousness constantly transcends. This means that it is always its past which is no longer and its future which is not yet. as the existentialists say. temporal surpassing or temporal flight. they throw the big book down with a thud and never go near it again. the best way to fully grasp the meaning and sense of the paradox of consciousness is to think of it in terms of the ceaseless passage of time. that it exists not as a thing but as a relationship to the world. as do all paradoxes. '.
The really mind-blowing claim that phenomenologists and existentialist philosophers make about time is that there is no such thing as time apart from consciousness. p. The three dimensions of time that we are all so familiar with – past. only consciousness can do that. Here is Sartre's paradox of consciousness again with the temporal stuff added in and hopefully this time it makes a lot more sense: The being of consciousness is not to be what it is (its past) and to be what it is not (its future). present and future – are not really separate. On Friday the Saturday cycle ride I plan so carefully is not-yet. consciousness is never in the present. the fragments have a cup-like past only for . if it comes to pass. The broken fragments themselves do not recall that there was a cup. When a cup is broken there is as much stuff as there was before it was broken but the cup has gone. consciousness that temporalizes the world. To think that consciousness can ever be fixed in the moment is to suppose time can be frozen. Sartre himself says. 146). Like an object in motion consciousness is never there or there. It is consciousness that brings time into the world.What is Existentialism? 33 the future at which it aims. what is in my future. Consciousness is constantly no longer where it was and not yet where it will be. The present is simply the presence of consciousness to the world as a being that constantly transcends the past towards the future. Similarly. As I arrive home from it the event immediately becomes no-longer. What is now a person's past was once his future at which he aimed. What is now my past was once my future. Each one only has reality or meaning in terms of the other two. As for the present. The past cup exists only for consciousness. Not-yet becomes no-longer so consistently that Sartre insists it is more accurate to refer to the past as a pastfuture. it is only ever present (has presence) as a being endlessly passing on towards the future. will so undoubtedly become part of my past that it is more accurate to refer to my future as a future-past. we have already seen that it is not a fixed moment – there are no fixed moments for consciousness. 'At present it is not what it is (past) and it is what it is not (future)' (Being and Nothingness. In other words.
A fire does not know its future is to burn down to a pile of ashes. If something was something only for consciousness. that without consciousness nothing comes into or goes out of existence. 'Come on then little acorn. I've got to grow into a big tall oak tree just like my gnarled old mom. destruction. Let's go back to that acorn again – it hasn't grown much since we last talked about it and it can still be identified as an acorn. growth. then it is only for consciousness that anything has a past. As it is in itself apart from anyone being conscious of it. only consciousness can know that the future of a blaze is a pile of ashes. As becoming an oak is not a project for the acorn. It has a future only for a consciousness that understands that the acorn is not yet an oak tree but will be an oak tree in future. grows up or gets burnt down. it is equivalent to claiming that apart from .' It is not projecting itself towards any future goal and it has no futurizing intention whereby it recognizes itself as something that presently lacks itself as an oak tree. Understood in this way.34 How to Be an Existentialist consciousness. Unless I am very much mistaken and the kind of thing that happens in fairy tales is true. an acorn is in process of becoming an oak. It is simply to argue that apart from consciousness there is no awareness of the processes of becoming. Pretty much the same can be said for the future. Rather. Of course. decay. no notion of a past or a future for any particular present. claiming that there is no time apart from consciousness is not equivalent to claiming that nothing happens apart from consciousness. to claim that there is no time apart from consciousness is not necessarily to claim that apart from consciousness there are no processes of becoming in the world. which is the same as saying that the ash heap future of the fire exists only for consciousness. Yet in doing so it is not aiming at becoming an oak. it is correct to say that the acorn has no future. and definitely not a conscious project. big effort. If the claim that there is no time apart from consciousness is understood in this way then it ceases to be as crazy as it first sounds. the young acorn is not down in the good earth saying to itself. only for consciousness that anything can be truly destroyed.
The future never satisfies and fulfils us completely because we only fulfil our future intentions for them immediately to become part of our past. Existentialism recommends bravely accepting that this is how life is and making the most of it. For existentialism. you can't be conscious without being temporalized. to be what we are instead of having always to strive to be it. but as even the least philosophically minded person knows. as I've been more than hinting. without hurtling on through time like a truck with brake failure. To which we can add. Ironically perhaps. Is all this a cause for regret and despair? Well. why they always feel that something is lacking. Not least. All this talk about time describes how it is for each and every person to be in the world. tomorrow never comes. In fact. it is just the way things are. for them to become a past-future on the basis of which we must again launch ourselves towards a new future. Consciousness is inconceivable other than as temporal. comfortable delusions. towards a new future-past. even if its consequences have a way of coming back to haunt us. time and consciousness are almost the same thing. namely the future. it shouldn't be. it reveals why people always feel slightly dissatisfied. Something is always lacking. there is also the suggestion that people will actually be happier and relatively more satisfied if . After all. and yesterday is just a memory. to achieve a future state of total completion in which we no longer lack anything. uncomfortable truths rather than the shifting sands of soft. But we never arrive at this godlike state of total smug self-satisfaction because we never arrive at the future. and the way things are is the price you pay for existing as a conscious being at all. Tomorrow all the pubs will have free beer. It recommends building your life on the firm basis of hard.What is Existentialism? 35 consciousness the world as it is in itself is without the features of nolonger and not-yet. certainly not according to existentialism. the awkwardness of our inescapable human condition. Existentialism claims that it is fundamental to what we are to want to be at one with ourselves.
the existence of other people. Each person is a being for him . It is because consciousness is essentially temporal that it is essentially free. We are our future possibilities and our freedom consists in being free towards the future. For now.36 How to Be an Existentialist they accept what the endless temporal flight of consciousness towards the future implies. I'll get into the details of exactly why this is later when I come to look at freedom and responsibility. Not only are people conscious of the world. More precisely. but as I say. This self-consciousness or self-reflection is a defining feature of human beings. Existentialism offers satisfaction of a stoical kind through the acceptance of the inevitability of a certain amount of dissatisfaction. Only a temporal being can be free because to be free is to have possibilities and genuine alternatives in the future. Sartre and other existentialist philosophers call our being-for-others. The most important consequence of the theory that consciousness is essentially temporal concerns freedom. they are conscious of themselves as conscious of the world. we need to look at another perennial existential truth of the human condition. Only monkeys. namely. but the key point to keep in mind for now is that we are free precisely because we are not fixed in the present. namely. Being-for-others Each of us is what Sartre and his gang call a being-for-itself. that it is alien to the human condition for a person to be completely satisfied and contented for any length of time. or at least be far less disappointed and far more calm and philosophical about life when complete fulfilment and total happiness are not achieved. dolphins and octopi (creepy) have anything approaching it. If people genuinely accept this truth of the human condition and take it to heart they will cease to hanker after complete fulfilment and total happiness. we need to investigate what de Beauvoir. more about freedom later.
'The Other'. the term allows for ease of explanation when discussing the various aspects of the phenomenon of being-forothers and the complex interplay of objectivity and subjectivity that occurs when this person encounters that person at the shops. People are seldom if ever truly alone. by the way. only half the picture. to be for the Other. is a fancy existentialist term for another person. as creating himself moment by moment through the things he chooses to do and the paths he chooses to take. as you may have already guessed. this is the meaning of being-for-others. especially these days with the world population spiralling out of control and everywhere getting so crowded. To be fair though. To get a better sense of what being-for-others is and the whole subject to object thing that takes place when the Other appears on the scene consider the following example: A man called John is walking all alone in the wilds down a beautiful valley beside a rushing stream. the term 'the Other' is rather pretentious. John feels he is at the centre of . Each person constantly confronts the existence of other people. So much for being-for-itself. flower and blade of grass. He experiences himself as free. rivers and lakes. He transcends the world in an almost godlike way and it is as though the world were there for him alone. not simply as objects in his world. Being-for-itself is. He is a pure godlike subject presiding over mountains. I had many encounters with the Other while I was shopping'. over every tree. his oyster. rocks. he is the measure of himself. He drinks in the fresh air and the stunning scenery and feels he is master of all he surveys. particularly one who looks at me. sees me and has opinions about me that put me in my place. to be in danger of being belittled by the Other. As you may already be thinking. Nobody comes back from town saying 'Hello Dear.What is Existentialism? 37 or her self. his playground. However deluded a person may actually be about himself he feels he knows himself. in the park. but as subjects who see him and judge him and reduce him to an object in their world. To be an object in the world of the Other. in the mountains or anywhere else. the judge and jury of his thoughts and actions.
is a drain-hole down which John's world flows. contains a new source of judgements and values which are not his and which escape him. As he draws near to the Other he checks his flies. of the clothes he is wearing and the way he is wearing them. dons a watery smile and prepares himself to deliver that awkward. He ceases to be the centre and sole judge of all he surveys because a source of re-evaluation has appeared on the scene to steal his world away from him and with it his splendid godlike transcendence. A wilderness where a person enjoying solitude encounters another person can certainly feel far more crowded than a busy street. does the same. . The Other draws near and soon John sees the Other see him. John was the centre of the world but now the Other has decentralized him. Even though the Other hasn't seen John yet the presence of the Other immediately affects John's situation. non-threatening hello and banal comment on the weather that strangers feel obliged to exchange when passing in the middle of nowhere. Rounding a large boulder that towers over him John suddenly catches sight of a stranger in the distance walking up the valley towards him. who might also be called John. The whole vast situation.38 How to Be an Existentialist the world. which was John's to judge and evaluate as he wished. But the Other is walking up the valley and it is only a matter of time before John is seen by the Other and becomes an object in his world. The Other. that it is all arranged for him alone. of the way he is walking and the expression on his face. In knowing he is seen John becomes uncomfortably aware of himself as an object. he is still an object in John's world. With deep irritation and disappointment John realizes it is the dreaded Other. The Other. The Other hasn't seen John yet. Although he is a drain-hole in John's world. The very appearance of the Other prevents John from playing God. The appearance of the Other signifies the disintegration of the world from John's point of view. that it exists only from his point of view. as Sartre so flatteringly puts it. a big threat to John's centralization. The world is re-orientated towards the Other and meanings unknown to John flow in the direction of the Other.
p. miles from the shops. less awkwardly aware of himself as an object. The Age of Reason. deserted street. embarrassment or humiliation. Released from the possessive gaze of the Other he begins to relax and to reclaim the wilderness. something he does not want to recognize or feel responsible for. dignity.What is Existentialism? 39 John feels relieved when he has passed the Other. In his embarrassment he can't help thinking that the Other has somehow got hold of a part of him. The Other makes him into something he feels he is not. when he leaves her house after she has told him she is pregnant with his child. and this is what she thought: "The dirty dog. each person suffers his being-for-others in shame. these are all aspects of what makes a fully rounded . Marcelle. other people force him to be what he is for them rather than what he is for himself. Most of the characters in The Age of Reason suffer a sense of enslavement to the opinion of others to a lesser or greater extent. of the tactless things he said at the staff meeting or the idiotic things he did at the office party. got the better of him. a cynical philosophy professor called Mathieu Delarue. in opposition to his freedom and his joyful transcendence. Against his will. 19). enveloped in his garments – he could not escape her' (The Age of Reason. transfixed: it wasn't true." It was no use striding along the dark. other people are likely to be in his thoughts. Marcelle had not let him go: she was thinking of him. 'He stopped. he's let me down. Even if. he is not particularly paranoid. he may well be plagued by the actual and imagined judgements of others and be unable to stop thinking about what others think of him. As doom merchants. pride. Being-for-others is a central theme in all of Sartre's fictional writing and not least in his novel. anonymous. feels enslaved by the opinion of his girlfriend. Soon the Other will round the large boulder and vanish and the world will become John's kingdom once more. Even when a person is physically alone. existentialist philosophers are a bit slow to admit there is also an upside to being-for-others. he wasn't alone. humiliation. So. embarrassment. trapped him. unlike most of us. miles from anywhere and anyone. though sometimes in pride as well. Its central character. Shame.
or whatever it is he does. or even to gain complete control over it.' Those with ability and determination do it by winning Olympic gold medals or qualifying as doctors. Richard Branson. so hard. . Although there is also what Sartre calls 'the religious practice of shame' (Being and Nothingness. People talk about feeling good in themselves and about setting personal goals. aspects that he is nonetheless held responsible for. having tattoos or wheel spinning their car at traffic lights.' If this isn't true then why doesn't billionaire Virgin boss.40 How to Be an Existentialist person. just fly his balloons around the world. I exist. free to admire. respect or fear them. while they hide behind a veil of false modesty and a charade of philanthropy. Nobody feels ashamed or proud all alone. People generally desire to impress and certainly go to great lengths to encourage other people to love. to be really cynical. p. usually their ability to run a marathon dressed as a chicken or Homer Simpson. I'm so beautiful. Having aspects of his being belong to others. As many great philosophers and religious teachers have noted down through the centuries. 'All is vanity. makes a person uncomfortable. 'Look at me. They are essentially other-related aspects. Charity gives people the opportunity to show off and publicize their achievements. without banging on about it to anyone who will listen? He doesn't need the money that publicity brings so why all the self-promotion? And. so cool. Even if I'm not better than you. these are derivative forms of shame. I exist. 245). Shame is essentially shame before someone. feeling ashamed before God or the all seeing eye of your deceased grandmother. A good deal of most people's behaviour is directed towards seeking to influence their being-for-others. for example. They are me but they exist over there for the Other. A person is his being-for-others – his shame. respect or despise him. Those with less talent do it by learning to juggle. vanity is what much of the current obsession with doing daft stunts for charity is all about. his pride – but he is it out there for the Other. so clever. but really they are all shouting. The Other possesses part of what a person is and is free to judge him. I'm just as good as you in my own way.
'and I probably lack the talent for this too'. as people who write books on how to be an existentialist don't make it on to Saturday night TV chat shows. made them think that he had something interesting to say. to give him his due. amazingly good at keeping it up. incidentally. Like most people I am full of resentment about other people. I just saw him as covertly arrogant and utterly selfcentred. especially all those bastards who have put me down in the past. I never saw Ray's refusal to speak as a mark of shyness. if he had spoken. He spoke only to his family by all accounts.What is Existentialism? 41 I'm forced to question my own motives in writing this book. people may have realized he was a bore with nothing to say worth listening to. Teachers usually scream at kids to keep quiet. I share with several other writers anyway. Perhaps I should have chosen another means of showing off but I lack the talent for anything else. Have you ever thought that modesty and shyness are just very crafty ways of getting attention? Like those deeply irritating people you meet who talk very quietly. a person detached from the name on the cover. They think they are so bloody important that they can deliver their gems of wisdom in a whisper while everyone else around them must lean in and strain to hear what they have to say. I will remain obscure. Although I admired his stubbornness. but over the years I saw several teachers scream at Ray to speak. Whereas. but only so I can flaunt my ability to write another book – dressed as a chicken for all you know – and in so doing triumph over people who haven't written as many books as I have. I want to perform a sort of intellectual duty by telling you how to be an existentialist. reserve or sensitivity. Unfortunately. I even feel resentment for a little kid I once knew at school who some said . a name that. but that would just be more false modesty and covert vanity. He was. He took words from people but never gave any back. I was going to add. Sure. I didn't know these words at junior school but they certainly capture how I felt about Ray. It made people want to talk to him. There was a boy at my school called Ray Groves who could speak perfectly well but never would.
a transcendence. admire or fear them and so on. however. they can never be certain it will last. he is more exposed than the naked models he looks at. he judged me as not good enough to speak to. He is free to transcend the meaning of his act and does not have to define himself as a bit of a pervert. What he is is now revealed to the Other and thereby to himself. though I tried. people who talk quietly and people who refuse to talk at all. he realizes he is being spied on. has escaped him and acquired meaning for the Other. Resentment is a feature of and a reaction to beingfor-others. . Suddenly. Suddenly. which for him had little or no meaning. people can never be sure they are creating the desired impression. Even if people are pretty sure others are impressed. if he reflects on his act. that others are not freely choosing to adopt an opinion of them contrary to the opinion they wish them to have. As an object for the Other a person is a transcendence-transcended by the transcendence of the Other. Each person's freedom is subject to the freedom of the Other. I resent Ray Groves because. the fact that the Other can so easily clip our wings and bring us down. He is a subject absorbed in what he is doing and does not judge himself. He ceases to exist primarily as a free subject for himself and exists instead primarily as an un-free object for others. All at once his act. The mere gaze of the Other fixes a person as an object in the world of the Other. he can avoid branding himself a pervert by telling himself his act was simply an aberration and so on.42 How to Be an Existentialist never spoke simply because he was ashamed of his squeaky little voice. a meaningless distraction with no bearing on his character or morals. the transcendence of the Other. Try as they might. I have managed here to form contrary opinions about such relatively decent characters as charity fundraisers. Until the man is caught in the act he remains a free being-in-the-world. To make better sense of the switch from transcendent subject to transcended object take the example of a man looking at pornography. It now belongs to the Other for whom he has become an obscene object. that others love. Later on.
that hell is other people. pervert. fellow connoisseur. but because they think it is a sweeping generalization that does not stand up to close scrutiny. In Camera. not because they think it is pessimistic.What is Existentialism? 43 In catching him in the act the Other has caught his freedom and is at liberty to judge him as he pleases. and the suffering that results from having a being-for-others that is beyond a person's control. existentialist philosophers tend to characterize human relationships as a ceaseless power struggle for domination and transcendence. It must always be kept in mind when considering being-for-others that a person is Other for the Other and is therefore able to alienate the freedom of the Other in turn by transcending his transcendence. Some critics resist the claim made by many existentialist philosophers that the essence of all human relationships is conflict. one of the central characters of the play. led them to conclude that all people spend their entire lives at variance with each other trying to do each other down. people are very often at each other's throats. Hell is other people!' (In Camera. For sure. is explored most famously and thoroughly in Sartre's monumentally pessimistic play. famously exclaims. Controversially. In Camera is a very clever play about three nasty. 'There's no need for red-hot pokers. This conflict. p. and anyone who lived through the horrors of World War II might be forgiven for concluding that conflict is universal. When they suggest that what . it seems fair to say that existentialist philosophers too often over-emphasize one aspect of human behaviour for dramatic effect. to inflict meanings upon him – voyeur. Garcin. self-centred people trapped in a living room for ever – a bit like Big Brother only with intelligent conversation. arguing that the basis of all human relationships is conflict. Being in their prime around the time of World War II and associating almost exclusively with a bunch of spiteful Parisian intellectuals obsessed with criticizing each other for effect. Although thoroughly depressing and claustrophobic. Camus and Sartre speak too much from their own miserable personal experiences. Nonetheless. dirty old man. 223). They argue that existentialist philosophers like de Beauvoir.
The French existentialist philosophers followed the German existentialist philosopher. music. The real truth seems to be that other people are sometimes hell. there are occasions when the us does not require a them in order to be maintained. Braveheart. dancing or drugs. in using the term 'Mitsein' to refer to the phenomenon of being-with-others. is a tough freedom fighter .44 How to Be an Existentialist Sartre calls the look is always threatening. protectiveprotected look between mother and child. a group united together by religion. or all of these highs simultaneously. they consider human freedom to be of the utmost importance. existentialist philosophers are always banging on about freedom. his ego is transcended by some collective experience or enterprise in which he becomes submerged in an us. For example. to the phenomenon of 'we'. Rather. Heidegger. Even so. a group may work together on a task with a common goal that is not primarily the goal of beating or destroying the competition. William Wallace. Freedom and responsibility Like Mel Gibson in that wonderful if not entirely historically accurate film. sometimes heaven. the caring. drawn and quartered. Alternatively. however. This submergence in an us. the hero played by Gibson. they ignore the evidence of certain contrary situations. Pure heaven. nor does he seek to transcend other people. On those occasions when a we vibe takes over a person is not transcended by other people. is often maintained through conflict with a them as opponent or hate object – conflict at the group level. Even when they are not liberating Scotland from the English (or France from the Germans) or being hung. may achieve a state of reverie or synergy amounting to a collective loss of egoism. To be fair to existentialist philosophers it should be noted that they do in fact show some appreciation of the capacity people have for being together without conflict in their notion of Mitsein – German for 'being-with'. for example. such as. Heidegger's own experience of the Mitsein was as a member of Hitler's National Socialist Party.
It is vital to a proper understanding of the existentialist theory of personal freedom to realize that it is just as much a theory of personal responsibility. freedom is having to make choices and therefore having to take responsibility. their advocacy of human freedom is not just a political stance. Contrary to popular belief. that he is always responsible for his actions. especially after the English scum who occupy his bonny Scotland slit his wife's throat. His limbs are posted to the four corners of the realm but they are the limbs of a man who dies asserting his FREEDOM. For existentialist philosophers freedom is not essentially about what people are at liberty to do. The existentialist theory of freedom is rooted in the existentialist theory of choice and action which in turn is rooted in the existentialist . Like a true existentialist he is wise enough to recognize that whatever he does he chooses to do it. a desire to promote liberty and justice around the world. the existentialist philosophy of freedom is not primarily concerned with liberty. Although most existentialist philosophers are interested in civil liberties and human rights. Moreover. Existentialist philosophers hold on considered philosophical grounds that all people are fundamentally. He refuses to choose himself as the slave his English oppressors want him to be. social and economic oppression they suffer. it is deeply philosophical. that nobody can in fact take his freedom away from him however much they try to enslave him. about what they are able to do or allowed to do and so on. like a true existentialist he insists on affirming and asserting his freedom. his army is finally defeated and he is captured. Freedom is not freedom from responsibility. necessarily and inalienably free regardless of their circumstances or the level of political. but about each person's responsibility for whatever they do or do not do in every circumstance in which they find themselves.What is Existentialism? 45 who will just not be dictated to. and in refusing to use his freedom to check his freedom he pays the ultimate price. Victorious at first. He recognizes the existential truth that he is not only free when the powers that be allow him a few privileges (not that they ever do). but that he is fundamentally and inalienably free whatever his circumstances.
As a temporal transcendence towards the future consciousness stands outside the causal order. Don't worry if the last paragraph skimmed over your head hardly making contact with your hair or your bald patch. It needs time to digest things and it may well be that the general gist will come to you later on when you've put .46 How to Be an Existentialist theory of human consciousness and temporality we looked at earlier. nothing in the present. belong to a past that exists for a consciousness that is the future of that past. It exists only as a perpetual temporal flight or transcendence away from the past towards the future. As a relationship to the world it is not founded upon itself but upon what it is not. just read it again! Re-reading in philosophy is quite normal. Move on. which are what they are and can never be other than what they are once they have happened. The past exists only for a consciousness that transcends it towards the future. They offer a positive account of free will showing not only that free will is possible. Consciousness is the future of the past. In arguing for free will existentialist philosophers do not simply make room for it by offering various arguments against determinism. It cannot not be an opening up of possibilities. Consciousness is never in the present. It is a wise habit rather than a sign of limited brain cells. never identical with itself. which is to say. I'm sure you'll get the general gist. consciousness has to be these possibilities. This stuff about time and possibility is a key part of existentialism that is hard to put more simply. The brain is more like the stomach than people think. as nothing but the future possibilities of what it transcends. but that it is necessary given the nature of consciousness. and is therefore nothing in itself. What? You've already re-read it five times and it's still as clear as mud? No worries. Events. the world of cause and effect events. Determinism being the view that all events and states are necessitated by prior events and states. it is the future possibilities of the past. Consciousness exists only as a transcendence of the past towards the future. As seen. As nothing but a being towards the future. ambiguous and indeterminate being that is never at one with itself. consciousness is a paradoxical.
when you are out jogging. Consciousness is not in the future. Furthermore. it is in the future at which consciousness aims that consciousness is free. a one-time future that has now passed into the past.What is Existentialism? 47 this book down. Some of the possibilities that comprise consciousness get transformed into a past-future and this past-future immediately becomes the launch pad for a further transcendence by consciousness towards new future possibilities. Anyway. by choosing a course of action. The transformation of possibility into actuality is the transformation of what existentialist philosophers call future-past into past-future. not the most convenient place if I want to make notes. Interestingly. Nonetheless. paper and books that we do our best thinking. the past is a past-future. the general gist of what I'm saying here is that we are able to be free in a world of mechanical cause and effect events because we constantly escape that mechanical world towards the future. As we've seen. It is in the future at which we aim that we are free. It is a necessary feature of human consciousness that it is not free to cease being free. implies that it cannot not be free. the future exists only as the 'not yet' towards which consciousness flees. eating your supper or watching TV. And so on and on the process goes until death makes heroes of us all. the fact that it cannot not be an opening up of possibilities. it's often when we get right away from pens. The freedom of consciousness consists in the perpetual opening up of the possibilities of situations. the future can never be reached because to 'reach' the future is to immediately render it past. The fact that consciousness has to be a temporal transcendence in order to exist at all. People are . Consciousness discovers itself in a world of possibilities that it creates by being a temporal transcendence towards the future. The general gist of a thing often comes to me when I'm in the shower. consciousness brings some of its possibilities into actuality and abandons others. By choosing among its possibilities. free in the sense of having a range of future possibilities which it realizes for itself.
to choose not to choose' (Being and Nothingness. 'The resistance of the thing [facticity] sustains the action of man [freedom] as air sustains the flight of the dove' (The Ethics of Ambiguity. p. A person can never not choose because. p. a sort of hippy freedom. in fact. for whenever or however he attempts to do it. as Sartre says. This will be seen when we come to look at bad faith in the chapter on how not to be an existentialist. or. with each other and so on. As Simone de Beauvoir puts it. Facticity is what freedom works to overcome. it consists in the constant responsibility of having to choose who he is through the actions he chooses to perform in response to the adversity and resistance of his situation. must be a free choice of himself. as Sartre puts it. they give each other meaning and reality. A person can never surrender his freedom. although freedom always needs facticity in order to be the overcoming of it. A person cannot make himself determined by the world. he must choose to do it. In so far as freedom is very closely linked to what we have been calling transcendence. . the very attempt to render himself causally determined. p. In the opinion of hard-line existentialist philosophers there is no end to the responsibility of having to choose. Transcendence and facticity exist in close relation to one another. with the world. Bad faith is a kind of game in which transcendence and facticity are deliberately muddled up and confused. 'Not to choose is. He can never make himself an object causally determined by the physical world because the very project of surrender. people are 'condemned to be free' (Being and Nothingness. A person's freedom does not consist in a complete detachment from all obligations.48 How to Be an Existentialist necessarily free. 503). It is important to note that existentialist philosophers call the adversity and resistance of things and situations facticity. 462). 'Transcendence' and 'facticity' are very useful philosophical terms that allow existentialist philosophers to launch into various subtle descriptions about the relationships people have with their own bodies. 81). we can say that transcendence is the transcendence of facticity.
so it is also limitless. If a disabled person considers his disability the ruination of his life then that is a choice he has made for which he alone is responsible. Controversially. He remained positive and active and campaigned tirelessly for the rights of disabled people. for example. The point is how he lived his life. 352). This means that I choose the way in which I constitute my disability (as "unbearable. who played Superman in the movies. . his obligation to choose a response in every situation." "to be revealed to all." "an object of pride. but limitless in the sense that his obligation to be free. Half way up I passed a man inching his way down the mountain on elbow crutches. his freedom is still unlimited. fly unaided." etc. I recently climbed Mt. Not limitless in the sense that a person is free to do anything. He is not free to walk in the sense of being at liberty to walk. Reeve died young as a result of his paralysis. 'I think that setting challenges is a great motivator. 'I can not be crippled without choosing myself as crippled. and I refuse to allow a disability to determine how I live my life. was paralysed from the neck down in a horse riding accident in 1995.What is Existentialism? 49 Freedom and disability Just as freedom is necessary. Everyone dies sooner or later. walk on water or lick his elbow. He is free to choose his disability positively. To strive. because too many people with disabilities allow that to become the dominating factor in their lives. for example." "to be hidden. Sartre says. By a sustained act of will worthy of Superman himself Reeve refused to be ruined by his quadriplegia. He once said. but that's not the point. Even if a person is disabled and unable to walk. raising tens of millions of dollars for research into paralysis. Snowdon in North Wales." "the justification for my failures. Christopher Reeve." "humiliating.' I don't know if Reeve was a student of existentialism but he certainly had some of the qualities that make a true existentialist. to be a successful para-athlete or to spend the time he used to spend playing football writing a book or fundraising. is unremitting. p. but he is still free to choose the meaning of his disability and hence responsible for his response to it.)' (Being and Nothingness. The Hollywood actor.
50 How to Be an Existentialist He had a hunchback and his lower legs were so splayed that he walked on the sides of his feet. who through greed. His condition made every small step he took down the mountain a major task. He had little power to save himself from falling and had fallen several times. happy to be mastering his disability and choosing its meaning. It would take him many exhausting hours to descend the five mile Llanberis Path on his deformed legs and his elbow crutches but he was determined to do it. They would struggle to get down Snowdon almost as much as the man with spina bifida. existentially speaking. or the lazy. obese person who always chooses the soft option and does as little as possible except when it comes to eating crap and making excuses? Perhaps the only truly disabled people in this world are those who have a disabling attitude. It made me wonder. On my way down nearly two hours later I caught up with him less than a mile from where I had first seen him and we walked down together for a while. It emerged that he had spina bifida. I nodded hello as I trudged past aiming for the top. have made themselves unhealthy and hugely overweight. is certainly a tough and uncompromising view. It would definitely be a return ticket on the mountain railway for those slobs. except that they wouldn't bother to attempt the hike in the first place. laziness and general self-neglect. As it was physically impossible for him to climb up mountains he had taken the train to the top of Snowdon and set himself the awesome challenge of walking down. It even seems harsh and politically incorrect in our contemporary excuse culture that consistently undervalues individual responsibility and consist- . responsible for his disability. To insist that a disabled person is. He was obliged to individually negotiate with painful slowness each rock that made up the rough path and his progress was as dangerous as it was slow as his crutches occasionally slipped on wet rocks or sank in mud. He was happy to be mastering the situation in which he had placed himself. who in this world is really disabled? The 'cripple' who always chooses to push himself and do as much as he can. Despite the difficulty and the pain he was enjoying himself and would accept no help. I found myself comparing him to couch-potatoes I know. wondering how he had got there.
Unlike a lot of public buildings. He was doing the utmost the facticity of his body allowed him to do. showered then went out for a well deserved cup of tea. Sartre is saying precisely that a disabled person is not his disability but instead his freely chosen response to his disability and his transcendence of it. I wondered if he was still descending at his snail's pace. responsible for his disability. although. on the other hand. considered as 'just a quadriplegic in a wheelchair' or 'just a spastic on crutches'. A good death I guess. The man I met on Snowdon with spina bifida was not disabled but definitely differently able. whose great contribution to existentialism is a book called Phenomenology of . however. a damned sight more than some people without his congenital disadvantages can be bothered to do. To tell a so-called disabled person that he is. existentially speaking. looking up at the mountains. is not to insult him or to show him a callous lack of consideration. This view should. No disabled person wants to be reduced to their disability. be seen as empowering and very much politically correct in terms of the respect it shows disabled people. All afternoon and into the evening. it is to inspire him and to offer him the only real hope available if his disability is incurable. I got back to my hotel at the foot of Snowdon.What is Existentialism? 51 ently overvalues the blaming of circumstances and facticity. it offers the disabled no special concessions. I guess he got down OK and I never heard anything to the contrary. but if he died trying then he died transcending the awful facticity of his socalled disability. Any disabled person who is not wallowing in self-pity – choosing to wallow in self-pity as Sartre would have it – would surely embrace Sartre's description of his situation. existentialism has always been equipped for disabled access. Possible limits to freedom More moderate existentialists like Maurice Merleau-Ponty.
think that there are sometimes limitations to freedom. it isn't your fault. So. Of course. Sense of humour: Although education and experience can change a person's sense of humour over time. Part of what I find amusing is their offence. A quick examination of these examples does appear to reveal that not every conscious response is freely chosen. Actually. some people are able to hold down fifteen bottles of beer a lot longer than other people through sheer will power. so much as something that just happens with his out of control body. People. mainly rock stars. I find Bernard Manning funny partly because he reminds me of all those sanctimonious. Merleau-Ponty is thinking more of certain dispositions and responses that require conscious awareness in order to occur but are nevertheless not matters of choice. They do not choose them and can not choose to change them. Vomiting doesn't necessarily require conscious awareness. John Bonham. Philosophers who sympathize with Merleau-Ponty's position list sense of humour. if you find the deliberately and outrageously offensive English stand-up comedian Bernard Manning funny. people do sometimes do things over which they have no control. Sexual preference: Although sane people are undoubtedly responsible for all actions that stem from their sexual preferences they are not responsible for their sexual preferences. politically correct liberals who have taught themselves to find him offensive. having said that. right-minded. Vomiting after drinking fifteen bottles of beer is not really something that a person does.52 How to Be an Existentialist Perception. but I'm not sure this point is relevant to the current debate. often vomit in their sleep with dire consequences – Jimi Hendrix. Bon Scott. laugh it up. go ahead. if he finds a joke funny at the time he hears it he is not choosing to find it funny. like vomit after drinking fifteen bottles of beer – beer they chose to drink in the first place of course – but this is not really the kind of thing Merleau-Ponty has in mind. we might . On a genuinely serious note. panic reactions and insanity as examples of dispositions and responses that require conscious awareness in order to occur but are not matters of choice. Although. sexual preference.
To some extent it is a result of the historical period in which it was produced. And certainly helplessness in many if not most situations in life is an all too familiar sham. to be wrong to argue that people are always responsible for what they do and the evaluations they make. In making this request they are conveniently confusing a sexual preference for which they are not responsible with actions for which they are certainly responsible. Sartre probably has the toughest and most uncompromising theory of freedom and responsibility. can eventually learn to gain control over his panic reactions through training and experience. It is a physical response that requires consciousness in order to be made. but it is not always under the control of consciousness. their intention being to cunningly evade responsibility for what they do. his . Insanity: Psychiatrists recognize that the genuinely mentally disturbed have obsessive. Of all the existentialist philosophers. Sartre. has the choice of whether or not to panic on a particular occasion when the bullets start flying and the big guns start blazing. Panic reactions: Panic has both a physical and a mental dimension. It produces a fight-or-flight reaction which freezes a person between engaging the enemy or legging it. however. It appears.What is Existentialism? 53 ask why some psychologists think they can counsel paedophiles out of their sexual preference? Do they think they can counsel heterosexuals and homosexuals out of theirs? Some paedophiles have asked to be castrated in order to stop them from doing what they do. He remains starkly conscious but he has temporarily lost control of himself. The fact that a soldier. and hence place himself in a position to be able to choose not to panic. does not imply that every soldier. Sometimes panic overwhelms consciousness. for example. The hard-line existentialist theory of freedom does not allow for the diminished responsibility that is the accepted hallmark of mental illness. particularly the rookie. compulsive tendencies over which they have little or no control. It is surely correct to argue that responsibility can not be avoided or freedom limited by choosing not to choose.
To his existentialist credit he didn't make excuses and say. did his bit to resist the rising tide of fascism and Nazism that culminated in World War II by arguing in favour of individual freedom and inalienable personal responsibility. Obviously I don't recommend it. in the end.54 How to Be an Existentialist thoughts increasingly influenced by political concerns. A friend of mine once stuck his foot in the front spokes of a bicycle he was riding. It can make a person anxious to know there is nothing that he is in the manner of being it. dangerous. Freedom and anxiety A person's awareness of his unlimited or nearly unlimited freedom can be a source of anxiety or anguish. but like an infinity of other possible actions we don't perform each moment. You could choose right now to tell your boss. that whatever he does is his free choice. . .' Our freedom makes us anxious because there is nothing but our freedom itself to stop us from performing destructive. . 'I had this overwhelming urge that "made me" do it. that there is nothing to stop him from pulling whatever crazy stunt he thinks of pulling other than his choice not to pull it. . irresponsible slob? There is a surprisingly large amount of public funding available for people with the latter aspiration. embarrassing or disreputable acts at any moment. if you have one. it's always an option. Perhaps. Later on at the hospital when I asked him why on earth he had done it he replied that it was simply because the spokes were there in front of him and because he wanted to. Or would you rather aspire to be a whinging. Rather than write the next paragraph I could leap out of my window. Sartre is not offering us a philosophical theory worked out in every single detail so much as an ideal to aspire to through sheer unrelenting will power and implacable bloody mindedness – a life of maximum responsibility and minimum excuses. to eat shit. or you could destroy your respectable reputation in an instant by choosing to expose your private parts in the street.
. or have not chosen when in fact they have. Sartre says: 'Vertigo is anguish to the extent that I am afraid not of falling over the precipice. to assert your freedom and avoid bad faith at every turn. To deny the reality of freedom and choice. which manifests itself as vertigo. perhaps as a means of avoiding anxiety. existentially speaking. Joke: A student goes to see his Existentialism lecturer. that they need not or cannot choose. is what existentialist philosophers call bad faith. The man fears he might fall but he also suffers anxiety. He imagines himself compelled to act as he does by survival instincts and so on.What is Existentialism? 55 Obviously I didn't leap because here is the next paragraph. Still. He takes the example of a man picking his way carefully along a narrow precipice (Being and Nothingness.' replies the lecturer. perhaps with the aim of relinquishing responsibility. In order to avoid freedom-anxiety people often adopt strategies to convince themselves and others that they are not free. for fear of litigation at the hands of our excuse culture (our 'blame anyone but yourself' culture) I must stress that I'm not recommending it. 'but I don't want to be'. 'Yes. 53). 'Are you free?' the student asks. Bad faith is not the opposite of freedom. 53–56). perhaps as a coping strategy. If you want to be a true existentialist then you have to strive to want to be free. it is freedom that gives rise directly to the possibility of bad faith in so far as bad faith is a project of freedom where freedom aims at its own suppression and denial. he quite understandably strives to ignore the freedom to jump that menaces him by absorbing himself in the task of picking his way cautiously along the path as though his movements were physically determined by the demands of the situation rather than by himself. pp. In the case of the precipice walker. because he is free to jump. Sartre distinguishes what can be called freedom-anxiety from fear. poking his head around the door. Obviously. The next chapter is all about bad faith. but of throwing myself over' (Being and Nothingness. But you could leap out of your window rather than read on. the choice is yours. p.
just as telling you about him is my positive way of telling you there is still a long way to go. If this is your position then you have satisfied criteria 1 and 2 of being an existentialist that I set out at the beginning of Chapter 1. toughness and true grit.' This was his positive way of telling his long-suffering crew there was still a long way to go. a pocket watch and barrel loads of Royal Navy determination. not how far you have to go. you are well on your way to becoming an existentialist having crossed off two of the three criteria. 'Always think how far you've come. you now know a fair bit about existentialism and thanks to its candid assessment of the human condition have been persuaded that it is largely true. Bligh was set adrift in a 23ft open launch with 18 crew members and not much else. As the much maligned Captain William Bligh once said (at least in a movie I saw). having read this far. A sour-faced old git by all accounts – not actually one of the personal qualities required to be an existentialist . by knowing about it but failing to believe a word of it or by making no effort to live the life it recommends. Hopefully.3 How Not to Be an Existentialist A person can fail to be an existentialist by not knowing anything about existentialism. So. Following the mutiny on the Bounty in 1789. but he certainly exhibited some of the personal qualities required to be an existentialist.618 nautical miles to the island of Timor with nothing but a sextant. I don't think Bligh was an existentialist and I don't know enough about him to know if he was authentic. For 47 days he navigated the launch 3.
By far the biggest obstacle or pit fall on the voyage to being a true existentialist is bad faith. doing your best is for infants on school sports day. In fact. As existentialism itself claims. To act in bad faith is the most sure fire way of failing to be an existentialist. Just sit back and let an honest appraisal of life convince you. The hard part. a part as hard as navigating a tiny launch across thousands of miles of hostile ocean. you are reading this book because you want to know how to be an existentialist. is satisfying criteria 3 as set out at the beginning of Chapter 1. he did what was necessary. He didn't do his best. Sartre is obsessed with bad faith because it is so widespread and right at the heart of the way most people behave most of the time. but being an existentialist is probably harder than navigating across the pacific in a rowing boat with nothing but 18 scurvy sailors and a shiver of sharks for company. Knowing what existentialism is is relatively easy. believing it involves no effort at all. not because you want to know how not to be an existentialist. Presumably. The existentialist theory of bad faith is largely Sartre's theory. I think it will help you make huge advances towards your goal of becoming an existentialist if I describe how not to be an existentialist.How Not to Be an Existentialist 57 but it may help – he stared his grim reality square in the face and asked himself. The existentialist philosopher with the most to say about bad faith is good old Jean-Paul Sartre. if I describe and analyse the bad faith behaviours you must avoid at all costs if you want to succeed. Still. brainy head. Learning about existentialism is probably easier than using a sextant to measure the angular distance of a celestial object above the horizon. theory is all well and good but in the end it's actions that count. That is. striving with some success to live and act according to the findings and recommendations of existentialism. for little people who don't really know what their best is. believing it is easier still. That is. maybe the most interesting and thought provoking theory that ever came out of his great. 'What is required here?' And then he went and did it. Certainly. Sartre felt he was .
'I wonder if I'll notice if I just sneak a couple of pawns off the board?' A person simply cannot cheat without knowing he is cheating. it is consciousness through and through and thoughts exist only in so far as a person is conscious of them. is impossible. Bad faith is not self-deception Bad faith is often described as self-deception. stories. As Sartre says. Bad faith cannot be self-deception for the simple reason that self-deception. respectable middle-class childhood and writing about it at such length in his critiques. without looking in some detail at the fascinating examples he uses to explain it. in the sense of lying to yourself. Such a psychic duality cannot exist within the unity of a single consciousness.58 How to Be an Existentialist surrounded by bad faith during his stuffy. It seems fair to say that to become a true existentialist a person has to learn to hate bad faith as much as Sartre does. is at best an over-simplification and at worst misleading and wrong. as lying to yourself. plays and biographies is his way of resisting it and rebelling against it. p. A person can no more succeed in lying to himself than he can get away with cheating while playing himself at chess. his way of getting us to do the same. Lying requires there to be two externally related consciousnesses. Consciousness is translucent. novels. a psychic duality of deceiver and deceived. This description. let's get rowing. 'The essence of the lie implies in fact that the liar actually is in complete possession of the truth which he is hiding' (Being and Nothingness. Whenever a person lies he knows he is doing it. because superficially it appears to be self-deception. A lie involves a deliberate attempt to mislead and relies on the fact that a person's own consciousness is a consciousness the Other is not directly conscious of. 71). . Enough said by way of justifying the strong Sartrean flavour of this chapter. however. Sartre and the theory of bad faith are so bound up with each other that it is impossible to examine bad faith without examining what Sartre has to say about it.
p. disposition and way of behaving of real people in real situations – it is best to give an account of it using specific. some of them striving to overcome it and achieve authenticity. bad faith is more like an ongoing project of self-distraction or self-evasion than self-deception. Nah.' Sartre explains as forms of bad faith the attitudes and behaviours that Freud explains as products of a psychic duality within a single person. knuckle headed nightclub bouncer dressed up in his tuxedo and dickie-bow can't do his job unless he knows who he is supposed to be excluding. This is certainly Sartre's approach. As will be seen. You're barred. His books are stuffed full with characters in bad faith. sorry mate. A no-necked. existential phenomenon – the attitude. In trying to show the absurdity of Freud's position Sartre argues that consciousness would not be able to repress certain unwanted thoughts and imprison them in the unconscious without actually knowing what it was repressing.How Not to Be an Existentialist 59 In being translucent consciousness can not be compartmentalized with thoughts concealed from each other in different compartments. Flirting and teasing Sartre opens the detailed account of bad faith he gives in Being and Nothingness with the example of a flirtatious but naïve young woman . As bad faith is not an abstract concept but a concrete. Sartre says. what's your name? Sexual Desire for Mother is it? Hold on. I'll see if you're on the guest list. In rejecting the existence of a psychic duality within the unity of a single consciousness Sartre rejects the famous distinction made by the famous Austrian psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud between conscious and unconscious. 75). 'If we reject the language and the materialistic mythology of psychoanalysis. we perceive that the censor in order to apply its activity with discernment must know what it is repressing' (Being and Nothingness. most of them sinking further into it as their lives drag on. concrete examples of people in bad faith. Not tonight. 'Ere. Bad faith does not require a psychic duality within a single person and it does not involve self-deception.
She avoids making this positive choice by striving to choose herself as a person who has transcended her responsibility for her embodied. The flirt takes the guy's various compliments and seemingly polite attentions at face value ignoring their sexual background. She aims to become a being that is what it is. is older than her. Each moment she aims to become a person beyond her situated self. hoping to leave it all behind her. more experienced. She distracts herself from the meaning of her situation and the disposition of her limbs by fleeing herself towards the future. a person who is not defined by her current situation. It would not be obliged to choose and to act. an object like a table or a rock. It is this negative choice that exercises and distracts her and stands in for the positive choice she knows her situation demands. situated self. her whole body. a facticity and a transcendence. or to be more precise. the guy takes hold of the young woman's hand. that is the choice that faces her. Finally. Such a being would not be subject to the demands of the situation. She aspires to abandon her hand. The young woman knows her hand is held and what this implies but somehow she evades this knowledge. the transcendence . She treats her hand as though it is not a part of herself. He. in the very act of trying to abandon her body she recognizes that the situation of her body is like a demand to choose. every human being is both an object and a subject. as though it is an object for which she is not responsible. To take the man's hand willingly or to withdraw.60 How to Be an Existentialist and the guy who is trying to bed her. to the past. creating a situation that demands from her a decisive response. maybe even a bit of a lounge lizard. As we have seen. or rather she is the ongoing project of seeking to evade it and distract herself from it. neither taking her hand away or acknowledging the implications of holding hands. She strives to choose herself as a being that has escaped its facticity. it would not be responsible. Yet. but she chooses to flirt. escaped the complications and demands of its situation. yet one that is still conscious. But she fails to meet this demand by instead choosing herself as a being that would-be beyond the requirement to choose. you get the feeling. and she treats her act of omission of leaving her hand in the hand of the man as though it is not an action.
There are various related forms of bad faith as revealed by the various concrete examples Sartre provides and all of them manipulate in some way the facticity-transcendence 'double property of the human being' (Being and Nothingness. she treats her transcendence as though it is a facticity. as though it has a transcendent power over her body. so to speak.How Not to Be an Existentialist 61 of his or her facticity. Her attitude. practising authentic behaviour. The difficulty is producing responsible responses all the time across the widest possible range of circumstances. though a choice all the same. 79). as though it is a transcendence-in-itself rather than the transcendence of the facticity of her situation. she would choose either to push the man's hand away and tell him to get lost. Being a true existentialist. If she had the intention of becoming a true existentialist. can be as simple as this. however. some of them far more difficult to handle with guts and without excuses than little moves in the mating game. is keeping it up. It is negative choice. It is strongly suggested in the example itself how the flirt ought to behave to avoid being in bad faith. is strong minded and responsible. At the same time. what she confronts mentally and what she evades. makes all the difference between having her hand held and holding hands. As simple as the difference between having your hand held and holding hands. To try to ignore that her hand is held and what this implies is weak minded and irresponsible. to cease being in bad faith her outward behaviour. That is. choosing to choose. It is choosing not to choose. the intention of striving to be authentic. as I've already said. To decide to consent to hold hands and to recognize that this will encourage further tentative advances by the man. It is positive choice. . she treats her facticity as though it is a transcendence. bad faith is the project of seeking to invert and/or separate facticity and transcendence. In essence. Interestingly. The flirt treats the facticity of her situation. however. or hold his hand and take responsibility for encouraging him. in terms of which her choices of herself should be exercised. The difficulty with being a true existentialist. p. That is. she treats her transcendent consciousness as though it is its own transcendence. her bodily movement or lack of movement. need not be any different. It is.
to use another person without their consent. but she is nonetheless using him in some game of her own. Whatever her motives. is to fall into a certain kind of bad faith. To fail to respect the freedom of others. Perhaps she wants to get her revenge on men in general for the way one or more men have treated her in the past. as we do when we tease and tantalize them. it is to fail to be authentic. a tease.62 How to Be an Existentialist Of course. It can be argued that just as it is authentic to respect and affirm one's own freedom. The waiter walks with a robotic . a flirt who knows her actions are a false sign. Authenticity. who knowingly holds hands. it appears. perhaps. This person seems to be a different kind of flirt. Is the knowing flirt – the tease – less in bad faith than the evasive flirt? Arguably. Waiters. However. Perhaps she has reasons to get her revenge on this person in particular. She is not planning to use him in a sexual sense. actors and attitudes Another example from Being and Nothingness of a character in bad faith is the waiter. because she is deliberately misleading the Other. but also knows that they have no intention of ever going further with the Other than holding hands. that ethical and moral behaviour can be identified as other-related authenticity. is not just a personal matter but also about how we relate to other people. a knowing flirt. So much so. knowingly encourages the Other. we can imagine a woman. or lack of them. to treat them as a mere means to one's own ends. she is not. A flirt who leads the Other up a very short garden path with only a wall at the end and definitely no gate into a dark and interesting alley. it may have already occurred to you that a flirt who consents to hold hands or takes her hand away is by definition not a flirt. Using all his skills as a writer of fiction Sartre paints a vivid picture of the waiter in action. or a man. so it is authentic to respect and affirm the freedom of others. is to fail to respect them as a free being. as opposed to a flirt like Sartre's flirt who evades thinking about what her actions imply.
As a waiter-thing he would escape his freedom and the anxiety it causes him and become a sort of robot waiter. A close look at Sartre's description of the waiter reveals that. restraining his movements as if he were a machine. it is to say that he has become his performance in the sense that when he is absorbed in his performance he does not reflect that he is . like all good impressions. he overacts his role as a waiter to convince himself and others that he is not a person but an object. he is too eager and attentive. he is no more in bad faith for trying to be a waiter than an actor is in bad faith for trying to be James Bond. against this view of Sartre's waiter it has been argued by some Sartre nerds. Striving to be a thing in order to escape the responsibility of being free is certainly an identifiable and common enough form of bad faith. He aims to become for himself the object. We get the clear impression that he is playing at being a waiter. In other words. Arguably. a good impression that. However. consciously – though not self-consciously – impersonating a waiter. there is a definite sense in which he knows what he is doing. He steps too rapidly towards his customers. One common view of Sartre's waiter is that he is in bad faith for endeavouring through his performance to deny his transcendence and become his facticity. including myself. an object made to be a waiter and nothing but a waiter. that although the waiter certainly strives to be a waiter-thing. just like an actor. the function.How Not to Be an Existentialist 63 stiffness. he is not in bad faith because the purpose of his striving is not to escape his freedom. a waiter-thing. the transcendence-transcended that he often is for other people in his role as waiter. but the very fact that he has to represent to himself what he is means that he cannot be it. Rather. He acts with insincere or ironical intent. is more like whoever than whoever himself. To say that acting like a waiter is second nature to him is not to say that he believes he has become a waiter in the way that a rock is a rock. he is tongue in cheek. He has become so good at it that it is like second nature to him. He is doing an impression of a waiter. He strives to be at one with his own representation of himself. As the expression goes.
the very opposite of bad faith. A waiter in bad faith would be a reluctant. a movie star or anything else if what you actually do everyday is teach classes. As we've seen. rueful waiter who kept on thinking. Deliberately changing my situation was not an . he strives to take full responsibility for the reality of his situation. choosing himself positively in his situation by throwing himself wholeheartedly into his chosen role. At first it wasn't easy but eventually the more enthusiasm I put in the more reward I got out and I liked myself more for making the effort. the waiter Sartre describes is authentic. In saying this he does not mean that he plays with his condition in order to become it. For the first few years I endured it just for the money and more or less hated it most of the time. I kept thinking.' He would be a waiter who chose to wait at tables while wishing he was someone else somewhere else. It helped a lot that I changed my situation to a school where the teachers were slightly less dull and uneducated and the children slightly less vile. 'I'm not really a waiter. To be authentic I needed either to throw myself into the role with sustained enthusiasm or find something else to do that I felt committed to doing. Unlike the flirt he does not evade what he is – the transcendence of his facticity – by striving to treat his facticity as a transcendence and his transcendence as a facticity. this isn't me. he can only ever play at being it. his 'being-in-situation' (War Diaries. but that his condition is only ever realized as a playing with his condition.64 How to Be an Existentialist performing. It seems to follow from what has been said in the last couple of paragraphs that far from being in bad faith. He strives to embrace what Sartre calls in his War Diaries. I was in bad faith. As I couldn't find anything else at the time that paid the bills so well as teaching I decided to throw myself into the teaching role with more passion. p. a person can not achieve identity with himself and become once and for always what he aims at becoming. But it was me because I was doing it. a sports commentator. I was a school teacher for ten years. You can't claim you're a writer. Sartre says that the waiter 'plays with his condition in order to realize it' (Being and Nothingness. The waiter can never be what he is. Instead. 54). p. 82).
Bad faith is moaning about your circumstances but doing nothing to change them. he denies that homosexuality is the meaning of his conduct. He believes a homosexual is not a homosexual as a chair is a chair. all resist embracing their beingin-situation. but in so far as he has adopted conduct defined as the conduct of a homosexual. or a soldier. p. A character that closely resembles the homosexual Sartre describes in Being and Nothingness is Daniel Sereno. Sartre argues that the homosexual 'plays on the word being' (Being and Nothingness. 87). as 'not being what he is not'. or a waiter. or a bus driver. He slyly interprets 'not being what he is'. A teacher in bad faith.How Not to Be an Existentialist 65 act of bad faith but a way of taking possession of my broader being-insituation. The homosexual attempts to deny altogether that there are various facts about him and that certain meanings can be correctly attached to . Rather than take responsibility for his gay conduct he chooses to characterize it as a series of aberrations. Sartre's homosexual does not deny his sexual desires and activities. sincerity and transcendence Sartre develops the account of bad faith he gives in Being and Nothingness with the famous example of the homosexual. or a sales executive. Instead. That he is not a homosexual in the sense that a chair is a chair does not imply that he is not a homosexual in the sense that a chair is not a table. he is a homosexual. This belief is justified in so far as a person is never what he is but only what he aims at being through his choices. as mere eccentricity. Being-in-situation is a vital feature of being authentic and is central to the project of becoming an existentialist. The homosexual is quite right that he is not a homosexual-thing. one of the main characters in a trilogy of novels Sartre wrote called Roads to Freedom. Homosexuality. as the result of curiosity rather than the result of a deep-seated tendency and so on. We will revisit the existentialist idea of being-in-situation in the next chapter.
he is his facticity in so far as it is a past that he continually affirms as his by having always to transcend it towards the future. that existentialist philosophers argue is at the heart of all human relationships. radical way. is that he is forever his facticity in the sense of having been it. In urging the homosexual to consider himself as just a facticity the champion of sincerity aims to stereotype him as just a homosexual.66 How to Be an Existentialist his behaviour. he is not just a facticity but the transcendence of a facticity. his facticity is his past and because it is his past and nobody else's he is forever responsible for it. it is to transcend him and reduce him to a transcendence-transcended. the inevitable conflict. as a homosexual-thing. that his facticity. though he is not his facticity in the mode of being it. he urges him to consider himself as just a facticity. the homosexual is a homosexual. His motive in seeking to stereotype the homosexual and render him two-dimensional is to deny him the dimension of freedom that makes him an individual. the term 'homosexual' describes him correctly. Ordinarily. The truth. a champion of sincerity. If the homosexual took his friend's advice to be sincere and admitted he was gay. He assumes in bad faith that he is a pure transcendence. exposes sincerity as a form of bad faith. In his project of bad faith the homosexual attempts to force a rift between his facticity and his transcendence when in truth they are locked together as tight as his past and his future. he is and must be the transcendence of his facticity. however. in his usual. far from being a pure transcendence. Of course. however. if he declared. 'I am what I am. to come out of the proverbial closet and admit that he is gay. his past. Sartre. The homosexual has a friend. The champion of sincerity wants the homosexual to apply the label 'homosexual' to himself. He attempts to deny altogether that he is his facticity. has vanished into the absolute nothingness of a generalized past that has nothing whatsoever to do with him. who urges him to be sincere. In truth.' he would . That is. sincerity is admired as a form of honesty or good faith. In doing so. Once again we discover the struggle for transcendence. but he is not just a homosexual. In other words. It is worth repeating. in the sense of was.
In short. instantly becoming the one who admits to being lazy rather than the one who is responsible for being lazy. To declare. he insists he is as a thing in order to escape being that thing.How Not to Be an Existentialist 67 not overcome his bad faith. He would simply exchange the bad faith of considering himself a pure transcendence for the bad faith of considering himself a pure facticity. in order to become the person who contemplates from a distance the thing he has ceased to be. The form of sincerity identified so far is relatively unsophisticated. it is to declare myself a facticity when in reality I am the transcendence of my facticity – this is bad faith. This more sophisticated and devious form of sincerity still involves a person declaring. but to distance himself from what he is by the very act of declaring what he is. The person who confesses a sin renders his sin into an object for his contemplation that exists only because he contemplates it and ceases to exist when he ceases contemplating it. Confession that aims at absolution is bad faith. to the shadows of the confession box. 'I am what I am. Sartre also identifies a more sophisticated and devious form of sincerity. 'I am so lazy' admits Fred. Unlike a person who adopts the simpler form of sincerity. Believing himself to be a pure transcendence he believes he is free to move on from his sin and abandon it to the past. Some religious groups have made enormous use of this form of bad faith down through the centuries. Fred does not aim to be his facticity by denying his transcendence. The classic example of this more sophisticated form of sincerity is confession. Cunningly. 'I am what I am.' is to assert the fallacy that I am a fixed entity while evading the existential truth that I am an ambiguous and indeterminate being who must continually create myself through choice and action. not to be what he is. he aims to be a pure transcendence divorced from his facticity. They offer personalized confession .' but here his aim is not to be a thing. as a disarmed sin that is neither his possession nor his responsibility. In declaring himself to be a thing he aims to become the person who declares he is a thing rather than the thing he declares himself to be.
the very deep problem that Sartre's homosexual has is that he doesn't want to be the homosexual he nonetheless chooses to be through his actions. This is almost certainly true of Sartre's homosexual character. To overcome his bad faith Sartre's homosexual would have to take the emotionally difficult step of wanting to be the homosexual his desires and his chosen conduct make him. Daniel Sereno. although he may find it very difficult on a personal and social level to bring himself to take that path. It is a brilliant marketing strategy that never goes out of fashion and has paid for a wealth of fancy buildings and bric-a-brac. he has to accept that he chooses his conduct. a homosexual-thing. not by labelling himself a homosexual-thing. he is in bad faith if he denies that homosexuality is the meaning of his conduct. To return to the homosexual for a moment. There is a close link between authenticity and refusing to regret which I'll look at in the next chapter. He has to accept that he is a homosexual. Daniel is. He has to own it. but if you want to know more about him you'll have to read the novels. but by accepting that his conduct characterizes him as homosexual and not as bisexual or heterosexual or any other kind of sexual. as though having a certain sexual preference forces him to do the things he does.68 How to Be an Existentialist and forgiveness services as a cure for the disease of guilt they spread around for free. He has to accept that it is a part of himself and always will be. He has to stop regretting his homosexuality and start affirming it. what should he do to avoid being in bad faith and to aspire to authenticity? How should he behave. Arguably. He could have chosen to behave differently but he didn't. Part of being a true existentialist is wanting to be what we make ourselves be by the way we choose to act. As with the flirt. what new attitude should he adopt? Clearly. the homosexual's path out of bad faith is not in fact a complicated one. And he is still in bad faith if he confesses that he 'has been' a homosexual as a cunning way of aspiring to no longer be a homosexual. . as the Americans say. He is equally in bad faith if he insists he is not responsible for his conduct because he is a homosexual. conflicted. as opposed to making excuses for the way we act and regretting it. Most importantly. He is responsible for his conduct and to be authentic he has to take responsibility for his conduct.
arguing that at heart bad faith is wilful ignorance that aims at the avoidance of responsibility. In Sartre's view. it is a type of knowledge. as in Nietzsche's. or even an existential counsellor! Yes. Existentialists are a hard-nosed bunch of realists but this doesn't mean they lack compassion or a real interest in using their insights into the human condition to help people help themselves get over their hang-ups and start living more honest. Sartre notes. although any donations would be gratefully received. This doesn't mean you have to read it on a leather couch while paying £50 per hour to a nodding dog. Ignorance is motivated by fear and anxiety that knowledge of stark reality is always possible. there are such creatures as existential counsellors. Ignorance. Wilful ignorance In a book called Truth and Existence that he wrote a few years after Being and Nothingness Sartre returned once again to the subject of bad faith. it is because I affirm that it is knowable' (Truth and Existence.How Not to Be an Existentialist 69 The homosexual might well need help to achieve such a radical and life changing shift in his attitude. 'Ignorance itself as a project is a mode of knowledge since. In fact. is not a lack of knowing. p. They practise a method called existential psychoanalysis invented by Sartre and developed by the psychiatrist R. if only because it offers advice – that is. . D. this book is an exercise in existential counselling. 33). but from a true friend. positive and less remorse-ridden lives. Not from a champion of sincerity who just wants to belittle him by getting him to label himself. Sartre says. always lurking. Existential counselling is the focus of the final chapter. In this work he explores the strategies of evasion and selfdistraction people employ to avoid the truth and remain ignorant of their real situation. In a way. Laing. counsel – on how to be an existentialist. if I want to ignore Being. To choose to ignore reality is to confirm that it is knowable.
to dispense with wilful ignorance and irresponsibility and instead to courageously affirm the existential truths of the human condition – abandonment in a Godless universe. of seeking a cure for it and so on. people who 'don't know they're born' are in bad faith. his stories. night sweats. responsibility. weight loss. What comes over very strongly in Sartre's fictional writings particularly. a desperate and sometimes quite violent effort to ignore the hard existential truths of the human condition. to know the way things are and to see life for what it is. novels and plays. coughing up blood. is that people in bad faith 'don't know they're born'. In her refusal to face her situation. she is similar to Sartre's flirt.70 How to Be an Existentialist to know the truth. activities that distract her from making the choices required by her situation. refusing to recognize their collective meaning. or rather. freedom. Sartre thinks that there is a widespread tendency among people to avoid confronting what life is really all about. A lot can be learnt about bad faith. by examining contingency and humankind's various inauthentic reactions to it. what is contingency? . does not require great intelligence but rather honesty and courage in face of reality. chest pains. For Sartre. but she chooses ignorance because she does not want the responsibility of dealing with her TB. Her symptoms place her at the threshold of new knowledge. that new knowledge would call for. So. She engrosses herself in activities that do not afford her time to visit the doctor. in her self-distraction and her evasion of responsibility. She views each symptom in isolation. To help explain his theory about bad faith and wilful ignorance Sartre takes the example of a woman with tuberculosis. mortality and so on – is to overcome bad faith in favour of authenticity. about a great deal of human behaviour generally. The woman refuses to acknowledge that she has TB despite having all the symptoms – fatigue. One of the hard existential truths that people strive to ignore and deny in the very way they live their lives is what Sartre and other philosophers call contingency.
and he explores the phenomenon in detail. a work he nicknamed his 'factum on contingency' while he was writing it. It is not the case that it cannot not be. a de trop existence that exists for no reason and for no purpose. pp. unnecessary. especially in his most famous novel. 32–33). it need not be or be so. superfluous and contingent. because in having no being of its own it exists only as a relation to contingency. Sartre calls this sickening and terrifying awareness 'the Nausea' – hence the title of his greatest masterpiece. there are no laws of logic or physics or anything else dictating that it must be. accidental. It is a grotesque cosmic accident that need not exist but does. For Sartre. it is not necessary. And this time it's new: it caught me in a café. Whatever is contingent is not necessary. so to speak. but it is unnecessary and in being unnecessary it is contingent. that filthy thing. Human consciousness is capable of a sickening and terrifying awareness of being submerged in an existence that is absurd. as a mere reflection of something gratuitous. 'Things are bad! Things are very bad: I've got it. Sartre identifies contingency as a fundamental feature of the universe. It is. . the central character of Nausea. In Side Effects. Until now cafés were my only refuge because they are full of people and well lighted' (Nausea. For a person to suffer the nausea is for him to experience a ghastly state of naked. Nausea. the Nausea. Although in Sartre's opinion existence as such is uncreated and not dependent on anything else for its existence. 'factum' being a term he adopted to describe any form of ruthless analysis. a collection of short stories. superfluous existence that not only surrounds him but is him. even more contingent than the contingent existence of the world.How Not to Be an Existentialist 71 Contingency. pointless. a basic fact of existence as a whole. nausea and the Existential Alka-Seltzer of bad faith Contingency is the state of being contingent. In the words of Antoine Roquentin. Human consciousness is. his mind and his body. existence is contingent in the sense of being absurdly superfluous.
It is also helpful after eating Mexican food says Allen. This is achieved largely by naming and categorizing things. recommends Existential Alka-Seltzer. people and life generally.72 How to Be an Existentialist existentialism's resident comedian. constantly aims to suppress contingency by imposing meanings and purposes on the world. If you think existentialism and mysticism have nothing in common. In naming something people believe they have made sense of it. less of a strange cosmic accident? The truth. is that things only have meaning and purpose relative to other things and the whole lot only has the relative meaning and purpose that our ultimately pointless activities give it. Seen for what they are in themselves. most human endeavour. grasped its essential essence. Contingency for Sartre is mysterious and to be aware of contingency is to be aware of the unfathomable mystery of being. that we have understood it and put it in its place. Woody Allen. even disturbing in their contingency. who had a huge influence on Nietzsche and existentialism generally. peculiar. We look it up in Collins Complete Guide to Wildlife and find out its common and Latin names and feel satisfied that we now know what it is. as a cure for the existential nausea induced by an over-awareness of the contingency of cafés. Zen think again. We see an unusual insect in the garden. buses. ascribed meaning to it. It would require another book to explore them adequately so I can only suggest you read some of the many excellent works already written on the subject. was himself heavily influenced by Buddhism. an enormous pill the size of an automobile hub-cap. streets. There are certainly many similarities between the existentialist and the Buddhist approaches to life. such as Lack and Transcendence: The Problem of Death and Life in Psychotherapy. removed the contingency of its raw. But does this naming ritual really make the insect less weird. The philosopher Schopenhauer. nameless existence. Existentialism and Buddhism by David Loy or Nothingness . strange. objects are incomprehensible. We all do it. parks. apart from the instrumental systems that give them their function or the framework of meanings that seem to explain and justify them. according to existentialist philosophers. Human society.
that they exist by some divine decree rather than by accident. nonetheless. always dwelling obsessively on contingency. who seem totally unaware of life's contingency. they tell themselves in bad faith. people who once glimpsed life's contingency and were terrified by it and are now on the run from it. The fundamental project of these people is to evade their own contingency and that of the world by acting in bad faith. like most people most of the time. to the daily round of 'doing his thing'. The world. They believe that society is rooted in these absolute values and that the way things are in society constitutes the only possible reality. That should keep you busy. absolute and unquestionable. often at the same time. lived and acted in the world of relative meanings and purposes. Sartre does not recommend that people should be like Antoine Roquentin in Nausea. that their existence is inevitable. That way lies madness. All they have to do to claim their absolute right to be respected by others and to have the respect of others sustain the illusion of their necessity is to dutifully fulfil the role prescribed to them by society and identify themselves totally with that role. Sartre's philosophy is characterized by an abiding hatred and distrust of people. They learn to see themselves only as others see them and avoid thinking about themselves in any kind of . which for him was mainly hanging out in cafés and writing. he kept his sanity and sense of perspective by directing his attentions to the task in hand. Sartre himself. He believed.How Not to Be an Existentialist 73 and Emptiness: A Buddhist Engagement with the Ontology of Jean-Paul Sartre by Stephen Laycock. usually middle-class (bourgeois) people. but he was always busy. They assume that they have an immortal essence. He wasn't big on retail therapy or DIY and I guess never mowed a lawn or washed a car in his entire life. Like most people most of the time. always striving to live under the aspect of eternity in a meaningless and absurd world. is not contingent but created with humankind as its centrepiece. They believe the moral and social values they subscribe to are objective. that an occasional or background awareness of contingency is vital if a person is to achieve any degree of authenticity and avoid living a lie.
You have probably met these people. although most politicians would fit the bill. The existentialist philosopher. his madness reveals his living soul. Kierkegaard. Kierkegaard contrasts 'objective madness' with 'subjective madness'. in short. People with objective madness do not really exist because they have completely lost themselves to objectivity by preoccupying themselves with facts: they even consider themselves to be just another fact. from fear of discovering that he has eyes of glass and hair made from carpet rags.74 How to Be an Existentialist philosophical way. than a person who suffers from subjective madness. For Sartre. 175). except on the most mundane and clichéd level. A good example of an objective madwoman is former British Prime Minister. A good example of a subjective madman is Don Quixote. but one dares not look at a madman [with objective madness] at all. 'One shrinks from looking into the eyes of a madman [with subjective madness] lest one be compelled to plumb there the depths of his delirium. You can recognize them by their conversation. The subjective madman is all too human. they avoid thinking about anything at all. the moustache becomes . Margaret Thatcher. Don Quixote is far more real as a fictional character than Thatcher is as a factual character. In a sense. what is commonly understood as madness. writes about people who suffer from what he calls 'objective madness'. analysis. Kierkegaard writes. Moustaches and salauds In Sartre's writing people with what Kierkegaard calls 'objective madness' very often grow a moustache. p. that he is. the person who suffers from objective madness is far less human. introspection and flights of imagination. Dwelling on the strangeness and contingency of their existence is strictly off limits. an artificial product' (Concluding Unscientific Postscript. For Kierkegaard. has far less soul. When you talk with them you feel you are following a script that permits the listing of mundane facts and forbids all discussion. As far as possible.
moustache that is. sexual and moral development of a privileged bourgeois. the most extreme bad faith. if you want to be an existentialist and you have a moustache you need to think very hard about why you have it. 'The fine gentleman exists Legion of Honour. why you shave your whole face except that bit between your mouth and nose. The most profound denial of contingency. As always.) I'm certainly not going to advise you to shave off your tache. Nonetheless. for Sartre. Sartre details the personal development of a typical salaud in a brilliant short story he wrote called The Childhood of a Leader. reactionary middle-class gentleman. I'm sure history is full of authentic characters and true existentialists with big taches. A man can not see his own moustache. p. The story traces the emotional. Lucien Fleurier. the choice is yours.How Not to Be an Existentialist 75 the emblem of unthinking men with no inner life. self-satisfied. that's all. he sees the two pointed ends of moustache on both sides of the nose. Once again. (I'm not sure where Sartre stood on beards. 147). I mean. psychological. becomes the emblem of the shallow. Nietzsche had a huge one. respectable. being an existentialist is not so much about what you do. exists moustache. I do not think therefore I am a moustache' (Nausea. Perhaps he is jealous because he couldn't grow a big macho tache himself. from . is achieved by people Sartre calls salauds – French for swine or bastards. so a moustache exists primarily for others and a man with a moustache is a man who has undertaken to exist for others rather than for himself. how happy one must be to be nothing more than a Legion of Honour and a moustache and nobody sees the rest. social. In so far as it is typical of the bourgeois to strive to be his social role. at least to the extent that others see it. Maybe Sartre is too hard on people with moustaches. the moustache. as your attitude to what you do. If becoming an existentialist was as easy as following petty rules about the presence or absence of facial hair then there would be millions of existentialists trying to take over the world rather than just a nearextinct handful hiding out in cheap cafés and dingy garrets. A salaud is as far from a true existentialist as you can get.
Lucien. his nationalism and above all his anti-Semitism. He had formerly searched for his personal identity. Membership of this aggressive. so he hates Jews instead. he not only finds a scapegoat for his past actions. but to hate them would be to recognize that he has them. looking forward to the day when he will inherit Daddy's factory and be respected by his workers. He prides himself that he is not a member of a despised race. He adopts Daddy's positive view of capitalism. however. to find and define himself. Lucien blames a homosexual encounter he has in his teens on the ideas of Sigmund Freud. Jewish ideas of Freud temporarily corrupted his moral health and led him to his gay fling. What he really fears and hates are his desires. eventually choosing to think and act in profound bad faith.76 How to Be an Existentialist infancy to adulthood. his badge of honour among his fellow Fascists. creating and forcing himself to believe in the illusion of his own necessity and determinacy. but . Like everyone else he must play at being what he is because he cannot simply be what he is. perverted. Raised in an antiSemitic environment it is easy for Lucien to convince himself that the dangerous. does not like this sense of his own contingency. In feeling indeterminate and contingent he recognizes the existential truth that there is nothing that he is in the manner of being it. macho. anti-intellectual tribe makes him feel strong and proud and gives him a sense of belonging. but now he is happy to take on an identity granted and confirmed by the group. it makes him uncomfortable and anxious. In fiercely despising Jews. He embraces the security and respectability of his wealthy family. to give himself a solidity and reality that replaces the vagueness and insubstantiality he usually feels. He adopts anti-Semitism as a distraction from his homosexual desires. He joins the French Fascist movement and helps to beat up an immigrant in a racially motivated attack. who happens to be Jewish. He tries various strategies to overcome it as he grows. like many people. Lucien's childhood and adolescence are characterized by his quest to understand who he is. he sees himself as important and substantial in comparison to people he despises.
Antoine Roquentin. p. In Sartre: Romantic Rationalist. His anti-Semitism. he decides to grow a moustache. cowardly. that they had a God given place in the universe and society.How Not to Be an Existentialist 77 a Frenchman with a good French name and respectable ancestry. now dead elders of Bouville – a town loosely based on the port of Le Havre where Sartre lived for several years. there is a sense in which the elders are still trying to convince the world of their superiority and their entitlements. In having themselves portrayed in this fashion the elders were attempting to convince themselves and others of their necessity and indispensability. and here they are. Sartre's contempt for salauds reaches its height in Nausea when he has the novel's central character. the construction of his false object-self. unreasonable and unfounded though it is. Antoine realizes that these portraits are a vain. absurd lie. with all that added sense of necessity with which the painter's thought can endow them' (Sartre: Romantic Rationalist. Their lives had a real given meaning. more significant. arrogant. He has become an absolute salaud. grander. and above all that they had rights. wealthier. dissatisfied with his pretty. visit a museum to look at the ostentatious portraits of the respectable. 12). His convictions define him and give him solidity. morally repugnant bad faith is complete. or so they imagined. Lucien's slide into chronic. They portray the elders as taller. a total swine. childish face. The portraits give the lie that these people have not really died but merely . is finally completed when. especially his social inferiors. dutiful. Iris Murdoch writes. He has persuaded himself that his existence is not accidental but essential and that he has sacred rights granted by God and his nation. transforms him into a man of conviction. they demand the respect of others. such as the right to have unquestionable opinions and prejudices and the right to have his necessary existence confirmed by the respect of others. more substantial and infinitely less contingent than they ever were in real life. The transformation in Lucien's self-image. 'Their faces are éclatant de droit – blazing with right. Though dead.
is it?"' (Nausea. . a microbe. Thank you. impeccable man. I existed like a stone. incidentally. They don't think to car-share on their final journey. my dear sir. 'I see hats. one of Bouville's most eminent deceased citizens: I hadn't any right to exist. . Antoine. you'll catch cold. now dead. pp. feels nothing but contempt for the idiotic hat raising and idle chatter people indulge in to pass the time on a Sunday morning along the exclusive rue Tournebride. a sea of hats. Madame. The class of the super-bourgeoisie. revealing the soft gleam of a skull. Sartre is fascinated by the lies and bad faith by which salauds seek to give their lives meaning and purpose. even more respectable social class. a Rover and a Porsche. . I had appeared by chance. if life is an utterly meaningless and pointless cosmic accident then hat raising rituals and idle chitchat are no more absurd . he had made use of his right to live.78 How to Be an Existentialist transcended to an even higher. His alter-ego. for Jean Pacôme. Now and then you see one fly off at the end of an arm. 67–68). . p. then. Of course. The salauds and the profound bad faith that characterizes them is well summed up in Nausea in Sartre's (Antoine's) mocking account of Jean Pacôme. But for this handsome. how are you keeping? Do put your hat on again. Good morning. it isn't very warm. without a moments failing. Middle-class heaven. "Good morning. Monsieur. a plant. the son of the Pacôme of the Government of National Defence. Nor had Pacôme ever made a mistake. it had been an entirely different matter: the beating of his heart and the dull rumblings of his organs reached him in the form of pure and instantaneous little rights. One couple per car. For sixty years. is a five star hotel with a large entertainments lounge where it is always Christmas. it settles again . (Nausea. Most of them are black and hard. . When the Grim Reaper claims them they drive to middle-class heaven in a Volvo. These magnificent grey eyes had never been clouded by the slightest doubt. They are like the middle-class people in the Monty Python film The Meaning of Life who die of food poisoning after eating salmon mouse. after a few moments of clumsy flight. 124) As a person who constantly recognizes that life has no meaning or purpose. Monsieur.
with behaving authentically.' *** I have now outlined the attitudes and behaviours you must avoid if you want to be a true existentialist. strife and suffering in the world. and I make no claims to having achieved it. 112). really. largely as a reaction to his own bourgeois upbringing.' 'I couldn't help it. 'I was only doing my job. Even Nietzsche. that it is a banal evil central to the hypocrisy and irresponsibility that causes so much trouble. by saying that it is unthinking. he would say. 'the narrowing of perspective. lazy and life denying.' 'They made me do it. History. the great champion of authenticity. that it oppresses the true. is so wrong with bad faith on a mundane level? Bad faith provides coping strategies. without much further ado I offer you the final chapter of this peculiar self-help guide that I hope will at least point you in the general direction of authentic existence. that being a true existentialist has a great deal to do with being authentic. and thus in a certain sense stupidity. as I've more than hinted at it several times already. It's one thing to read and write about authentic existence. It is surely no longer a secret. 'What is wrong with bad faith?'. is characterized by injustice and violence. as a condition of life and growth' (Beyond Good and Evil. Sartre. recognizes in Beyond Good and Evil. although I believe I've got close to it a few times in my life so far. but what. another far greater thing to achieve it.' 'I was only following orders. consistently despises the bad faith that so characterizes the middle classes. p. free human spirit. very often the injustice and violence of ordinary folk who acted in profound bad faith when they made those all too familiar excuses. it is a guard rail against the kind of anxiety that makes Antoine's life so wretched. It is now time that we focused on what you actually have to do in a positive sense to be a true existentialist. 188.How Not to Be an Existentialist 79 than anything else people do and are as good a way as any to pass the time between a pointless birth and a meaningless death. So. apart from knowing about existentialism and roughly subscribing to it. . or more precisely. Sartre would definitely reply to the question.
80 How to Be an Existentialist I am no Guru. this little book. that much I do know. more as a signpost. especially not blindly. a signpost that for some reason is pointing the way to Alpha Centauri. if you want to send me money like people do to those Gurus in India then please go ahead. Of course. a rickety signpost languishing on a grassy verge at a quiet crossroads somewhere in England. Think of me. Reach for the stars! . Existentialism isn't a religion. as existentialism and being an existentialist are definitely not about following people. which is just as well.
Sincerity is a form of bad faith. and they refuse to admit the unlimited or near unlimited freedom of the self and what this freedom implies.4 How to Be Authentic If we have learnt anything so far about authenticity it is that it is the opposite of bad faith. they refuse to admit the inability of the self to coincide with itself as a facticity or as a pure transcendence. More specifically. As we know. They refuse to recognize that a person must always choose what he is because he is unable simply to be what he is. Bad faith is inauthenticity. a person cannot not choose his responses to his situation. and because his responses to his situation are chosen. As for people who are sincere in the way advocated by the champion of sincerity. Sartre's examples of people in bad faith reveal that the most blatant feature of inauthenticity is the attempt to evade responsibility. he is responsible for his choices. . they admit to being something as a sneaky way of dumping responsibility for it. Sartre's flirt attempts to evade responsibility for her present situation while Sartre's homosexual attempts to evade responsibility for his past deeds. We have also learnt that authenticity is distinct from sincerity. Inauthentic people sustain particular projects of avoiding responsibility for their present situation or their past deeds by refusing in bad faith to admit that they are responsible. Even if he chooses to do nothing that is still a choice he is responsible for.
If he is not imprisoned he can. p. is the acceptance or affirmation of this fundamental existential truth. In his War Diaries Sartre writes that authenticity 'consists in adopting human reality as one's own' (War Diaries. Authenticity involves a person confronting reality and facing up to the hard truth that he is at all times a free being who will never obtain coincidence with himself. Instead of exercising his freedom in order to deny his freedom. It involves accepting without complaint that this and no other is his situation. A choice that gives rise to new situations and to new . As a radical conversion that involves a person affirming what in fact he has always been – a free and responsible being lacking coincidence with himself – adopting human reality as his own involves a radical shift in a person's attitude towards himself and his unavoidable situatedness. of course. authenticity consists in embracing human reality for what it is and living in accordance with it rather than pretending it is something else: a nice fairytale reality where dreams come true without effort. Assuming freedom involves a person assuming total responsibility for himself in whatever situation he finds himself. 113). as the antithesis of inauthenticity. The authentic person responds fully to the appeal to get real that pervades existentialism. the authentic person not only recognizes it. where knights in shining armour ride to the rescue and we all live happily ever after. whereas authenticity. but this still involves a choice. Whereas the inauthentic person tries to avoid recognizing that this is the fundamental truth of his life. he strives to come to terms with it and even to treat it as a source of values. the authentic person assumes his freedom and acknowledges it in a positive way. where debts don't have to be paid back. that this situation is the facticity in terms of which he must now choose himself. That is. reject his situation by running away.82 How to Be an Existentialist Authenticity and getting real Inauthenticity is the denial of the fundamental existential truth that we are free and responsible. and often beating a hasty retreat is a wise option. instead of acting in bad faith choosing not to choose.
This presupposes a patient . 'He thus stubbornly continues to flee what he's making of himself' (War Diaries. Above all. p. through the authentic realisation of the being-in-situation. 112). p. p. In denying that he is only ever his response to his facticity Paul pleads the excuse of his facticity. one brings to full existence the situation on the one hand and human reality on the other. gets a grip on himself and becomes authentic. He has not accepted his 'being-in-situation' (War Diaries. Paul says. This declaration reveals Paul is not taking responsibility for his choices. 112). Being-in-situation In his War Diaries Sartre writes about his inauthentic friend Paul who is a soldier. Sartre says. 'Me. p. as a given entity buffeted along by circumstances. With the exception of suicide – the toughest choice of all – it is not possible to run away from being situated altogether.How to Be Authentic 83 demands to choose. It is in ceasing to be like Paul and accepting his being-in-situation that a person ceases to be a buffeted consciousness. Paul flees what he is making of himself – a soldier – towards the non-existent civilian he mistakenly fancies himself to be. Paul is an example of what Sartre calls a 'buffeted consciousness' (War Diaries. The following passage from Sartre's War Diaries sums up better than anything else he ever wrote what he thinks authenticity involves: To be authentic is to realise fully one's being-in-situation. whatever this situation may happen to be: with a profound awareness that. but as he fights in an army 'soldier' is the meaning of Paul's conduct. He chooses to see himself as a facticity. Paul is not a soldier in the manner of being a soldier-thing. assuming his freedom involves realizing that because he is nothing in the manner of being it he is nothing but the choices he makes in his situation. 54). 112). a soldier? I consider myself a civilian in military disguise' (War Diaries. and every situation is a demand to choose.
84 How to Be an Existentialist study of what the situation requires. maybe they can never be justified. (War Diaries. if you want to obtain the holy grail of authenticity. He does not believe he is a soldier in the manner of being one. making himself 'be-for' the military situation and absorbing himself in that situation. In playing at being a soldier to the full. Authentic Paul not only recognizes that in his current situation there are no excuses not to play at being a soldier. but also of willing it' (War Diaries. existentialist philosophers are divided on the matter. he is not going to make any excuses. is that you have to totally quit making excuses like a reformed alcoholic has to totally quit drinking alcohol. and even if excuses are possible for some of his actions. authentic Paul aims at being a soldier all the way. 54) Imagine an alternative reality where Paul is authentic. something other than his current role. 113). But if a person wants to be authentic he has to recognize that there are no excuses for his actions. This doesn't mean he pretends to be a soldier. He has become his performance and his attitude towards himself involves a suspension of disbelief. What matters. p. To be authentic a person must resist by an act of will any desire for excuses. Sartre says. it's a question not just of recognising that one has no excuse. How does authentic Paul behave? Authentic Paul understands that his present situation requires him to play to the full the role of a soldier. but neither does he disbelieve he is a soldier in the sense of believing he is really something other than a soldier. p. Inauthentic Paul is full of excuses. Maybe excuses can sometimes be justified. Pretending to be a soldier is what inauthentic Paul does by considering himself to be a civilian in military disguise. because people are not responsible for absolutely everything they do. and then a way of throwing oneself into it and determining oneself to 'be-for' this situation. The same can be said for him as was said earlier for Sartre's waiter: He absorbs himself in his performance so much that he does not reflect on the fact he is performing. he does not want there to . 'Of course. By declaring that he is not really a soldier but a civilian in disguise he wants to be excused responsibility for the situation he is in and his actions in that situation.
To be truly authentic. he attempted to make the most of his situation and dedicate himself without remorse to his current role of 'soldier' – albeit a soldier with few duties who was often at liberty to read and write for sixteen hours a day. If he stays. We'll look at what Nietzsche has to say shortly. authenticity does not involve a person abandoning the desire for oneness. as he recounts in his War Diaries. 110). If authentic Paul does not want to be where he is he will leave without regret and face the consequences of desertion without regret.How to Be Authentic 85 be any excuses. This mustn't be understood as an empty psychological desire. Sartre. Sartre had so much time on his hands during the 'phoney war' that preceded the German invasion of France in 1940 that he is supposed to have written a million words in eight months. Surprisingly though. 'The first value and first object of will is: to be its own foundation. In trying to escape his desire for foundation a person can only aim at being nothing at all. to be its own foundation. . but as the transcendental structure of human reality' (War Diaries. p. Sartre says. attempted to do just this. that he will never become a kind of thing that no longer has to choose what it is. is fundamental to the human will so it can never abandon this desire. The desire to have a foundation. he will assume responsibility for his staying and throw himself into the spirit of things. substantiality and foundation. Rather than complain that he was really a sophisticated Parisian intellectual forced by circumstances to join an army unit exiled to the arse end of nowhere. The idea that living authentically involves living without regret is central to Nietzsche's view of authenticity. Freedom as a value Authenticity involves a person coming to terms with the fact that he will never be at one with himself. Any attempt to abandon altogether the desire for foundation collapses into a project of nihilism. Paul must fully realise his beingin-situation without regret.
he aims at substantiality by continually founding himself upon the affirmation and assertion of his freedom. What does he mean? What Sartre means is that the authentic person does not aim at oneness. For a person to believe that deep down he is a nothingness-in-itself is equivalent to believing that deep down he is something fixed and determined. p. both attitudes are equally in bad faith. He takes the affirmation and assertion of his freedom as his basic principle or ultimate value. by means of a futile flight from his freedom. His bad faith consists in his false belief that he is his own nothingness in the manner of being it. a nihilistic person who tells himself that he is in fact nothing. for instead of realising his negativity as a living movement. when in fact his nothingness consists in his being nothing but a relationship to the world he is conscious of. The failure of the serious sometimes brings about a radical disorder. and this nothing that he dreams of is still another sort of being. He seeks to identify himself with his inalienable freedom rather than flee his inalienable freedom in the vain hope of becoming a fixed thing. Simone de Beauvoir compares the nihilist who wants to be nothing with the serious person who seeks to annihilate his subjectivity by treating himself as an object entirely defined by social norms and conventions. 52) So. p. (The Ethics of Ambiguity. We shall call this attitude nihilistic. Conscious of being unable to be anything. foundation. Instead. The nihilist is close to the spirit of seriousness. As both attitudes involve considering himself to be a self-identical being that is what it is without having to choose what it is. he conceives his annihilation in a substantial way. 112). but it differs crucially from bad faith in that. the project of authenticity is still motivated by the search for substantiality and foundation. in the search. is flight' (War Diaries. a nothingness-in-itself. substantiality. He wants to be nothing. 'it suppresses that which. The project of authenticity is actually more successful at achieving a kind of substantiality than the project of inauthenticity because the . In her book. man then decides to be nothing. is actually in bad faith. The Ethics of Ambiguity.86 How to Be an Existentialist Far from being in good faith. as Sartre says.
In fleeing freedom a person does not establish a foundation. Sartre says. it is logically impossible for consciousness to achieve a fixed state and all attempts to do so involve bad faith. In assuming his freedom he 'becomes' what he is – free – rather than failing to become what he can never be – unfree. p. You can never just be converted into a true existentialist – . The substantiality achieved through authenticity is not achieved by consciousness once and for all. 112). an essentially free being. whereas the project of inauthenticity is only ever a flight from what a person really is towards an unachievable identity with the world of objects. 'Thus authenticity is a value but not primary. but I think maybe the explanation would not have made complete sense until now. A person cannot simply be authentic. It is important to note that the form of substantiality arrived at through authenticity is not a fixed state. to be authentic. The problem of being authentic This book is called How to Be an Existentialist. he is no longer authentic and has actually slid back into bad faith. but in assuming his freedom he establishes freedom itself as a foundation. the desire for constancy can only be satisfied by embracing freedom because freedom is the only thing about a person that is constant. To put it another way. It gives itself as a means to arrive at substantiality' (War Diaries. Authenticity is not a permanent foundation that a person chooses to establish at a particular time once and for all. he has to constantly strive to be authentic without ever being able to become an authentic-thing. but rather what existentialist philosophers call a metastable foundation that a person must constantly maintain by constantly choosing authentic responses to his situation. he has to be authentic. but only now is it becoming clear that it is not actually possible to be a true existentialist. That is. it is a substantiality that has to be continually perpetuated and re-assumed. I almost feel like apologizing for misleading people.How to Be Authentic 87 project of authenticity reconciles a person to what he really is. If a person ever thinks he is authentic in the same way that a rock is a rock. As said.
If this is so then the following objection regarding the very possibility of authenticity rears its ugly head: Arguably. Regret. perhaps. I've said that authenticity involves living without regret. and as we've seen. He is only authentic when he behaves authentically and he can never look to his laurels or even think that he is authentic. get the certificate. because it seems to me that a person just can't behave authentically if he thinks he is doing so. to do with exactly how a person thinks about his authenticity. for a person to think he is any kind of thing is bad faith. a real problem for anyone hoping to achieve authenticity as a result of reading this book! The only hope I can see. To think he is authentic is to think he is an authentic-thing. that he had made a different choice. it seems. Authenticity is the continuous task of choosing responses that affirm freedom and responsibility rather than responses that signify a flight from freedom and responsibility. . Authenticity is not a possession or an essence. I can't get rid of a nagging suspicion that intellectuals have a real problem when it comes to behaving authentically.88 How to Be an Existentialist read the book. authenticity is impossible because it is impossible to live without regret. An Olympic champion is an Olympic champion for four years even if he never runs another race. at least occasionally. it is the way a person chooses to respond to his facticity and the way he chooses himself in response to his facticity. is an unavoidable part of the human condition because anyone with the capacity to imagine alternatives can't help wishing. There may be a tiny loop hole out of this dilemma which I'll look at shortly. but an authentic person must run the race of authenticity all the time. The fact that even thinking 'I am authentic' prevents a person from achieving authenticity seems to be a real problem for anyone who tries to deliberately think his or her way towards authenticity. Despite my positive comments elsewhere in this book. pass the exam. The authentic person takes on the task of continually resisting the slide into bad faith that threatens every human project. is that when you have finished reading this book you donate it to Oxfam or auction it on ebay and try to forget all about it as you set about behaving authentically.
It is better. as undoubtedly he can by employing various strategies such as anti-depressants.' He recognized that saying 'I did my best' is often a rather pathetic . 'Never apologise. English gentlemen of the old school appeared to have lots of both. particularly for people raised in our culture of excuse and regret. lazy. Today. wilfully ignorant. gains nobility and self-respect. other-blaming people who whine that they did their best when they clearly didn't is just too readily excused. never explain. Talentless minor celebrities who appear on reality TV shows totally lack either. because a person who constantly strives to confront his situation and overcome it. refusing to confront his situation and his being in that situation. That noble old stalwart. who dwells on regret. then arguably he has the potential to master himself completely and regret nothing. Remember nobility and dignity? They are virtues that all but died out sometime during the twentieth century. the failure and sloppiness of too many greedy. Yet surely it is an heroic ideal worth striving for because it is always better to get real.' Maybe the task of complete self-mastery and self-overcoming is too difficult to achieve in one lifetime. his own lack of nobility and dignity. Today. Nobility and dignity need to be reinstated as important virtues. with a lot less emphasis on sympathy and the toleration of failure.How to Be Authentic 89 A possible reply to this objection is that it does not show authenticity is impossible. A cowardly person. Winston Churchill. sometimes we have to do what's required. on the other hand. If a person can come to regret less. negligence and self-neglect. nobility is seen only in films about the Roman and Medieval periods and dignity concerns only elderly patients wanting a bed pan. not least. a person who by this means constantly strives to confront and overcome himself. irresponsible. psychotherapy or the study of existentialism. Maybe he can become like the Duke of Wellington whose no regrets policy was expressed in his famous maxim. get a grip and make a stand than it is to be a buffeted consciousness tossed around by everything and everyone. simply that it is very difficult to achieve. once said. knows only his own weakness and sense of defeat. 'It's not enough that we do our best.
*** Sartre acknowledges that bad faith threatens every project of the human being. Sartre takes the example of a family man who is called to war (War Diaries. He assumes his freedom and becomes his own man. Nobility and dignity are true existentialist virtues. pp. existentialist attitude to life is to always avoid saying 'I did my best. Prior to his call-up the man was a boring bourgeois who treated his life as though it was on rails with a course dictated by the expectations of his family and his profession.' not least because you probably didn't and because you will probably do much better next time. dignified. Clearly. He allowed himself to be what others wanted him to be. Sartre says. 220–221). A person slides into bad faith the moment he ceases meticulously avoiding the world's endless temptations to slide. despite moving heaven and earth and bursting every sinew. impossible odds. Considering the world's endless temptations to slide into bad faith and the difficulties people face in resisting them. that he couldn't have done just that tiny bit better? A true existentialist approaches life with the attitude that he can always do better. circumstances beyond their control or just the bloody weather. to avoid saying what is harsh just in case someone gets offended. are defeated by a truly gifted opponent. this is all extremely unfair on gutsy people who. noble. The priority here is not to be fair to everyone. The logical objection is that a person can't do better than his best if he really did his best. a display of bad faith. or at least with the attitude that he only approaches his best if he achieves what he set out to achieve. 'He's led to think about those [past] . because it's only ever said when the best a person could do wasn't good enough. A person has to be almost super human to always avoid sliding into bad faith. but does a person ever know he really did his best.90 How to Be an Existentialist excuse. but that doesn't matter. and certainly a good. which is certainly not to fail in doing what is required. Bad faith is so convenient and so seductive that it is very difficult to resist all of the time. The stark realities of war open his eyes and inspire him to put his life into perspective. it is to identify a good attitude to life.
Resistance to his noble resolution comes not from within him but from the world around him and from his own past. however. tumbling headlong into inauthenticity' (War Diaries. to make resolutions for the future. This is the real test of his newfound authenticity because 'he can't revert to his old errors vis-à-vis that woman without. But if imposed inauthenticity is painful to resist then how can it be easy to resist? If it is because of his love for his wife that the man succumbs to imposed inauthenticity. a man who takes responsibility for himself and does not make excuses. 220–221). He has become a warrior and wishes to remain a warrior even after the war. but simply from the fact that his previous situations resist the change as things' (War Diaries. His wife. comes to visit him at the front with all the expectations he has always fulfilled for her in the past.How to Be Authentic 91 situations. against which it is easy but painful to defend oneself' (War Diaries. A man who is ready for anything. p. pp. Sartre would reply that it is in fact easy for the man to stop loving his wife and so resist imposed inauthenticity because love is only the choice to be in love. Her expectations. dignified type who refuses to compromise himself or to say what others want to hear just because they want to hear it. But can any man really choose to stop loving his . by reviving our old love' (War Diaries. noble. 221). 221). 221). A strong. 221). a being who expects the inauthentic of us will freeze us to the marrow with inauthenticity. presumably. who he still loves. In Sartre's words. Sartre goes on to say that such inauthenticity 'is an imposed inauthenticity. p. His love for his wife means that it is likely he will slide into inauthenticity by conforming to her expectations of him. not from residues of inauthenticity which may remain here and there in a badly dusted-off consciousness. 'Resistance comes. then maybe it is as difficult for him to resist imposed inauthenticity as it is for him to resist loving his wife. Without any effort or intention he behaves differently towards her simply because he is different. at a stroke. p. silent. and to establish guidelines for keeping authenticity as he moves on to other events' (War Diaries. 'For. p. present him with the image of his former inauthentic self.
authenticity is an existentialist ideal worth struggling for. Authenticity and intelligence The pursuit of authenticity as most existentialist philosophers see it requires a person to be intellectually aware of certain truths of the human condition. A person is only as authentic as his present act. Given the world's endless temptations to bad faith. In his War Diaries Sartre acknowledges his own failure to achieve sustained authentic existence. with his vast will power and his superior mental strength cannot achieve authentic existence. of all people. the difficulties of resisting regret and imposed inauthenticity. Sartre does not mention. however. why others should achieve what he. 62). Even if he has been consistently authentic for a whole week. it is very difficult for anyone to sustain authenticity for a significant period of time. old Sartre taking his radical freedom and choice thesis far too far? I'm going to duck out of answering this complicated question by saying that the answer to it is still a matter of much debate among Sartre nerds. if he is not authentic right now then he is not authentic. The difficulties facing a person striving for sustained authentic existence are enormous. If the great champion of authenticity. I have halted on the threshold of the promised lands. Nevertheless. failed to achieve. p. 'I am not authentic. it seems a person must first realize the futility of trying to be at one with himself. To affirm freedom as an ultimate goal. of trying to be a thing that does not have to make choices. Most people are probably only capable of achieving authenticity occasionally. what hope is there for the rest of us? A quick summary: Authentic existence is a project that has to be continually reassumed. . once again. for example.92 How to Be an Existentialist wife? Is Sartre right to insist that emotional states have no momentum of their own or is this. the fact that habit and other people's expectations shape a person's life as much as his capacity to choose. But at least I point the way to them and others can go there' (War Diaries.
that he is a civilian in disguise rather than a soldier. everyone who doesn't die first suffers their father's death. Similarly. The fact that they do not want to see them implies. but because they do not want to see them. In most cases. There was once a woman whose father died. it is not because people lack the intelligence that they do not see the existential truths of the human condition. but because they refuse to confront them.How to Be Authentic 93 When existentialist philosophers criticize a person for his inauthenticity – as they are very fond of doing – they do not seem to fully appreciate that the person may simply not realize he is inauthentic. the immanence of death and so on. The way they avoid seeing them again is by resorting to bad faith. Against this kind of criticism existentialist philosophers will insist that it only takes limited intelligence to recognize the existential truths of the human condition. it is not because they are uninformed. His belief will more likely take the form of a faith in the possibility of satisfying all his desires and achieving complete fulfilment. if a person is not aware of the existential truth that he is only his being-in-situation then inevitably he will believe he is what he has always been rather than what he has suddenly become. Having already seen them and having been made terribly anxious at the sight of them they desperately want to avoid seeing them again. of course. He will believe. If this seems an improper thing to . for example. that they have already seen them. that it is possible for him to be at one with himself. They are not mysterious truths buried in obscure works of philosophy. the contingency of existence. He is unlikely. of course. of course. The person may genuinely believe. But. It is because they are exercising wilful ignorance motivated by cowardice and sustained by bad faith. She was the kind of woman who insisted on being carefree and optimistic so when her friends gave her their condolences she replied that she hoped the same thing never happened to them. If people do not see these existential truths and the implications of these truths. knowing no better. Everyday life is a hard lesson in the elusiveness of satisfaction. if the role of civilian is all he knew prior to his conscription. to present his belief to himself in such intellectual terms.
Although the pursuit of authenticity need not necessarily be an intellectual project. Finding hard truths offensive is one of the most common expressions of bad faith. The trouble with too many philosophy students and teachers is that they think the point of studying philosophy is to get a Philosophy degree and to hell with enlightenment. especially his philosophy. Studying existentialism can be a process of profound personal enlightenment that influences the very nature of a person's existence in the world. As they say in Yorkshire. for example. If this is so then ironically there is a kind of wisdom in the wilful ignorance of people who lack the courage to confront the hard truths of the human condition. Studying existentialism highlights existential truths. however. then only educated people would pursue authenticity. existentialism offers enlightenment and a way out of the dark cave of ignorance. gave way to the inauthenticity of anti-Semitism and joined Hitler's National Socialist Party. Bad faith is a coping strategy that helps people avoid overwhelming anguish. According to the Ancient Greek founders of Western philosophy. inspired to pursue authenticity as a direct result of studying existentialism. The Republic. In his most famous work.94 How to Be an Existentialist say then that is due to the influence of bad faith. an expert in the theory of existentialism. it is wise to be 'thick ont' right side'. exposes bad faith and emphasizes the necessity of freedom and responsibility. As said. the purpose of studying philosophy. nevertheless. which is certainly not the case. For the Ancient Greek philosopher Plato. although its world-view is very different. achieving personal enlightenment is precisely the point of studying philosophy. the claim that profound personal enlightenment can result from the study of philosophy sounds grandiose. just as it shows that Heidegger. bad faith is wilful ignorance. If the pursuit of authenticity was necessarily an intellectual project. Plato . History shows that uneducated people strive to assume their freedom. some people are. is to achieve knowledge of the fundamental truths that enable a person to distinguish appearance from reality. Like Platonism. In an age when philosophy is often regarded simply as an academic subject alongside other academic subjects.
' immediately spoil whatever authenticity he has attained? As said.How to Be Authentic 95 compares the process of enlightenment to the ascent of a person from a world of shadows within a cave up into the clear light of day.' It seems absurd to suggest the old dear transformed the quality of my action simply by popping this mundane thought into my head. while I'm helping an old lady carry a heavy box up a flight of stairs. 'It's your good deed for the day young man. but doesn't his thinking. Our attitude to our actions is important and can influence the character of what we do. he has to constantly behave authentically. . 'I am authentic. Then again. On the other hand. 'This is my good deed for the day.' does that suddenly make my deed a selfish act? It is just an idle thought. I think. and thinking he is authentic is not behaving authentically. What is really so wrong with a person who is behaving authentically thinking 'I am behaving authentically at the moment'? Does thinking this really make his action inauthentic? Consider a comparative case:– If. it has been argued that to be authentic a person must realize his being-in-situation by throwing himself wholeheartedly into his situation. Authenticity and other people Looking back on what has been said so far in this chapter about authenticity there appears to be a contradiction that needs sorting out. This is all well and good but the nagging doubt I raised earlier remains: Can a person become authentic as a result of an intellectual process? Sure. perhaps my nagging doubt isn't so serious after all. it has been argued that authenticity involves refusing to live according to the expectations of others. a person cannot simply be authentic. studying philosophy can give him all sorts of noble intentions as well as a relatively useful qualification. but we shouldn't always attach too much significance to the casual and arbitrary thoughts that shoot through our minds while we are doing what we do. On the one hand. I was once encouraged to think this idle thought by an old lady who said to me.
Suppose the man refuses to indulge his wife and says to her. anymore than his capacity to fight is weakened by his capacity to love. But how can a person throw himself into certain situations without conforming to the expectations of others? Conforming to the expectations of others is precisely what a committed response to certain situations requires. sullen and harsh manner. It could be argued that behaving like this would be patronizing. the archetypal hero is both a lover and a fighter and can love or fight according to the demands of the situation. is an heroic ideal. To drive away a wife that he still loves because he cannot allow himself to conform to a former image of himself is not the behaviour of an authentic hero. Authenticity.' A reasonable response to this remark would be that if the war really has put him in touch with himself then he ought to realize that he is free to adapt his behaviour to the requirements of any situation. Moreover.96 How to Be an Existentialist Recall Sartre's example of the former boring bourgeois turned soldier who is visited at the front by his wife. but if patronizing someone involves treating them in a condescending manner then the man would patronize his wife far more if. but the behaviour of an inflexible. he confronted her in a superior. selfdestructive idiot. Their postwar writings acknowledge that a degree of social conformity is required . it has been suggested. his capacity to love is not corrupted by his capacity to fight. As the movies repeatedly show us. having experienced horrors unknown to her. After World War II showed them how interdependent people are. If the man is to throw himself wholeheartedly into his present situation – not the war but his meeting with his beloved wife – he must indulge her and make an effort to live up to her expectations of him in order to comfort her and preserve his relationship with her. 'This war has put me in touch with the real me and I can no longer behave the way I used to. Sartre argues that the man cannot conform to his wife's former image of him without falling into inauthenticity. hate and face horrors. Sartre and de Beauvoir began to acknowledge that authenticity involves conforming to some extent to the expectations of others.
Actually. they argue. as promised. unimaginative. politics and history. however. and a fair amount of it quite similar to Sartre. it's hardly surprising that great existentialist philosophers should think alike. are responsible for living up to the expectations that result from their social and historical circumstances. A person who seeks to evade this responsibility by refusing to be a person of his time acts in bad faith. Nietzsche is one of those towering figures of philosophy who influenced and continues to influence just about everyone. H. from D. 'No man is an island. from ghettoized Jews to Nazis. as John Donne said. entire of itself. from Freudian psychoanalysts (including Freud himself) to the more intelligent type of German Bundesliga soccer manager. It is an existential truth of the human condition that. Like Sartre. to acknowledge the existence and freedom of other people and the inevitability of having to have relations and dealings with them. logic-chopping academic.How to Be Authentic 97 for a person to meet the demands of most situations because most situations are human social situations to some extent. every man is a piece of the continent. Lawrence to Lawrence of Arabia. He acts as though he is a fixed and self-sufficient island existing outside of society. especially as Nietzsche had a huge influence on all the twentieth-century existentialists. he has a lot to say. 'logic-chopper' is one of Nietzsche's own terms of abuse. to look at what Nietzsche has to say about authenticity. Nietzsche on authenticity – regret nothing It's time now. This is partly because his writings appear to offer something for everyone. People. The main reason. Nietzsche was very fond of wittily insulting other . a part of the main' (Meditation XVII). Well. It is therefore authentic for a person to acknowledge this. when in truth he is a person rooted in the social and political situation of his day and age who exists only in relation to his day and age. is that he is a profound and inspiring thinker who gets much further down into the complexities and peculiarities of life than the average.
Soldiers making an orderly retreat refuse expansion but this does not mean they have lost their will to power. A being that refuses to expand still has will to power. Sartre argues that freedom can value itself as the source of all values. positive freedom is expansive. He does not deny and repress his freedom but enjoys it and is constantly aware of it.98 How to Be an Existentialist thinkers in his writings. For Nietzsche. a person cannot not be a will to power. It is a positive will to power. The ascetic ideal values self-repression and self-denial above all else and for their own sake. authentic person and the negative freedom of the inauthentic person who acts in bad faith choosing not to choose. Positive will to power is power as it is commonly understood: power that is expansive. Bad faith. A person does not achieve a . is still will to power. Likewise. Another reason why he is so popular with all the thinkers he didn't get around to insulting. but only for the self-denial it involves. taking responsibility. To exercise freedom negatively is to adopt what Nietzsche calls the ascetic ideal. a person cannot not be free. It triumphs in its own strength as a positive will to power. Its opposite. This positive freedom involves the same principles as Nietzsche's noble ideal. a key idea in Nietzsche's philosophy. however. A noble person positively affirms himself as a free being. Will to power. most importantly. Sartre has the concepts of the positive freedom of the responsible. The noble ideal involves the positive affirmation of freedom. value celibacy for the sexual health and peace of mind it brings. freedom that denies. by choosing his own values. A person who adopts the ascetic ideal does not. a person who conserves his strength behind a barricade exercises will to power in inviting his enemy to spend his strength attacking that barricade. For Nietzsche. overcoming difficulties. is a choice not to choose. can be either positive or negative. Sartre tells us. for example. refusing to regret and. just as. according to Sartre. He does this by acting decisively. checks and represses itself. even explosive. Opposite to the ascetic ideal is Nietzsche's notion of the noble ideal. sometimes even reckless and violent. Whereas Nietzsche has the concepts of positive and negative will to power. It is negative freedom.
a brilliant novel by the Russian existentialist writer Fyodor Dostoevsky. After committing doublemurder. in an attempt to escape his poverty. Sartre's idea of a radical conversion to authenticity involves a person becoming something like Nietzsche's Ubermensch. or what other people label his evil qualities. the central character Raskolnikov. but by overcoming his former self. p. Raskolnikov tells himself he must strive to be like Napoleon. kills a mean old pawn-broker and her sister with an axe. He regrets nothing because every experience has contributed to making him what he is. he will not even regret his evil qualities. a . identifies as a learning experience that helped to make him stronger and wiser. As the source of his own values he re-evaluates his evil qualities as his best qualities. As the creator of his own values the overman creates himself. his former values. If you've come across this German term before it might well evoke images of blondhaired. he is the artist or author of his own life. but it literally means 'overman'. the man who has overcome himself. In an article he wrote called 'Nietzsche on Authenticity' the Jewish philosopher Jacob Golomb (that's Golomb not Golum) says: 'The will to power is of a piece with the quest for authenticity – the will to become a free author (within the necessary limits) of one's own self. blue-eyed. In Crime and Punishment. His ability to do this is a true mark of his authenticity. In Nietzsche's view. 254). the artist or author of his own life. jack-booted Nazi Stormtroopers goose-stepping in tight formation through the Brandenburg Gate. whose aim is to positively affirm his entire life. It would have been far less drastic for Raskolnikov simply to claim welfare payments but there wasn't much of a social security system in St Petersburg in the 1860s. to become the creator of his own values. Whatever a negative person or a person in bad faith identifies as a bad experience to be forgotten or denied. 'The great epochs of our life are the occasions when we gain the courage to rebaptise our evil qualities as our best qualities' (Beyond Good and Evil. 97). The optimal will to power is expressed by the ideally authentic Ubermensch' ('Nietzsche on Authenticity'. p. 116.How to Be Authentic 99 radical conversion to authenticity by rejecting and divorcing his former self through the exercise of bad faith.
but rather that to be authentic you must take responsibility for all your actions whatever they are rather than try to disown them through bad faith and confession and the belief that you have been 'born again'. To disown the past in bad faith and to redefine the past by assuming responsibility for it are radically different responses. I am not saying that to be authentic you must go around killing mean old ladies with an axe without giving a damn about it. Nietzsche holds that the highest affirmation of life is the desire for eternal recurrence. As Raskolnikov's ego is not sufficient to swallow the enormity of his crime. if some day or night a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness and say to you: 'This life as you now live it and have lived it. Nietzsche writes beautifully so it is worth quoting his most famous passage on eternal recurrence in full: The greatest weight. Raskolnikov lacks the audacity to shoulder his dirty deed and genuinely not care about it. you will have to live once more and innumerable times more. all in the same succession and sequence . he lacks the courage to 'redeem the past and to transform every "it was" into "thus I willed it"' (Thus Spoke Zarathustra. For a person to truly affirm his freedom and his life as the creation of his freedom he must embrace the possibility of living it all over again in every detail an infinite number of times. he wishes he were not the free being he is and has been. his only means of escaping his guilt is to lapse into an attitude of bad faith whereby he disowns himself by disowning his past. Unfortunately. 161). unlike Napoleon. and there will be nothing new in it. p. – What. If the aspiring convert to authenticity is to overcome bad faith he must take responsibility for the whole of his past without regret.100 How to Be an Existentialist man who has the strength of character to justify his crimes to himself. but every pain and every joy and every thought and every sigh and everything unutterably small or great in your life will have to return to you. A person who regrets wishes his past were different. A person who regrets fails to affirm the whole of his freedom and hence the whole of his life as the creation of his freedom. In Nietzsche's words.
not in the past. it would change you as you are or perhaps crush you. The question in each and everything. 273–274) Nietzsche's uncompromising thought is that if you don't want to live your life over again then you're not living it right! He is asking you. you can't change anything. 'How should I live?'. and you with it. 341. That Nietzsche actually believes we live our lives over again an infinite number of times is debatable. 'Why are you doing that job now if you wouldn't want to do it again in your next life?' From a metaphysical point of view eternal recurrence is problematic: If eternal recurrence is true this life must be identical to the infinity of lives you have lived and will live. 'My formula for greatness for a human being is amor fati [love fate]: that one wants nothing to be other than it is. Nietzsche calls this his formula for greatness. and even this moment and I myself. and if you can't change anything you can't be free. The eternal hourglass of existence is turned upside down again and again.How to Be Authentic 101 – even this spider and this moonlight between the trees. It almost goes without saying that to become a true . not in all eternity' (Ecce Homo: How One Becomes What One Is. is: Aspire to live in such a way that you want each and every moment of your life to recur eternally. (The Gay Science. 'Do you desire this once more and innumerable times more?' would lie upon your actions as the greatest weight. what matters to him is not whether or not eternal recurrence is the case but the moral acid test that the very idea of it provides. pp. speck of dust!' Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus? Or have you once experienced a tremendous moment when you would have answered him: 'You are a god and never have I heard anything more divine. Arguably. not in the future. Or how well disposed would you have to become towards yourself and to life to crave nothing more fervently than this ultimate confirmation and seal. Nietzsche's answer to the perennial moral question. In rejecting and discarding his past like an old pair of boots. p. 68).' If this thought gained possession of you. Raskolnikov fails to adopt Nietzsche's formula for greatness.
In this he is very much like Sartre. connections. Heidegger's account of authenticity. Authenticity for Heidegger is principally authentic being-towardsdeath. Sartre's biggest influence. This all sounds rather morbid. but what Heidegger recognizes is that people can have an authentic or an inauthentic attitude towards the fact that they are going to die. by the way. 307). Anyway. and indeed it is morbid in the dictionary sense of 'having an unusual interest in death'. Connections. Sartre's account of authenticity emphasizes assuming and affirming freedom. Heidegger on authenticity – authentic being-towards-death Another existentialist philosopher who has a lot to say about authenticity. p. 'Death is Dasein's ownmost possibility' (Being and Time. is central to the very being of Dasein. A person's present is what it is by virtue of its finitude. German for 'beingthere'. to achieve authentic existence. which is not surprising seeing as – politics aside – he was Sartre's second biggest influence. The constant possibility of death in the present. was Husserl who was Heidegger's teacher but not Sartre's. but that's how it is.102 How to Be an Existentialist existentialist. even if he failed miserably to be authentic thanks to his right-wing political leanings. A tough call. you have to embrace Nietzsche's formula for greatness. Heidegger refers to the being of each human being as Dasein. emphasizes assuming and affirming mortality. Heidegger holds that the project of authenticity involves a person affirming the inescapable truths of the human condition. is Heidegger. as we've seen. although Sartre did study Husserl in depth on a nine-month sabbatical at the French Institute in Berlin in 1933. Dasein refers to a person's unique spatial and temporal situatedness in the world. maybe forever. on the other hand. a finitude arising from the . Heidegger says. the inevitability of death in the future.
Becoming aware of one's own mortality is a key part of growing up and becoming a genuine adult. at least in Western societies. 'I'm sure you hope to live as long as I have yourself. I thought as a child: but when I became a man. The older and younger generations are perhaps divided more by their attitude to mortality than by the fact that the former like tweed and tranquillity while the latter like hoodies and rap. I spake as a child. 'The non-relational character of death. 30). 'When I was a child.' Due to their limited experience of life the young are full of crap. tend to view elderly people as a totally separate group from the rest of humankind. rather than as people who were once young who have just happened to survive long enough to become old and near death. people tend to acquire an authentic 'I must die' attitude as they grow older. Young people. as understood in anticipation. A youth once mocked a man for reaching seventy. as rather repulsive creatures who were always old and decaying and near death. By recognizing that he himself must die. tend to have an inauthentic 'other people die' attitude. anymore than young children know what they are talking about when they say. The dismissiveness and contempt that is often shown by the young towards the old both reinforces this separating off of elderly people and is a symptom of it. rather than merely recognizing that people die. Authentic beingtowards-death involves a person fully acknowledging in the way he lives his life that his time is finite and his death inevitable. p. 'I'm going to kill myself before I get old. 'Don't knock me' the older man replied. on the other hand. a person ceases to view himself in bad faith as simply another Other and realizes that he exists as the wholly unique possibility of his own death. Not surprisingly. I understood as a child. or as The Bible more eloquently puts it. some young adults say things like. Heidegger says. . individualises Dasein down to itself' (Being and Time.How to Be Authentic 103 promise of death that perpetually haunts the present. I put away childish things' (1 Corinthians 13).' Of course. 'I'm not going to die. I'm going to live forever. they can't help it. Young people. better to burn out than fade away!' They don't really mean it.
but death – that proverbial bus that might knock you down tomorrow – is an ever present possibility for people of any age. like the authentic artefact. so elderly people are nearer death in one sense. as immortals who will always be young. their attitude is in bad faith because it involves viewing both youth and old age as fixed states rather than as phases of the same relentless process. Ok. is the genuine. bona fide article. Though his life may resemble the lives of many others. not a reproduction or a replica. especially if the youth rides a motorcycle. Nonetheless. This view fits in neatly with the claim that authenticity involves living without regret. For Heidegger. The seventy year old might well outlive the youth who mocks him for being seventy. It is even bad faith for young people to think of old people as nearer death than they are. he is. Not to think they will grow old and die is the privilege of youth and doubtless the old and enlightened envy them this privilege. so nobody lives much beyond one hundred even these days. If the . nonetheless. his own person and he identifies himself as his own person. To truly realize and affirm mortality is to overcome bad faith. The authentic person. Sartre describes death as an elastic limit that can be nearer or further away depending on circumstances. If a person was in a high fever yesterday. he was closer to death yesterday than he is today now that he has recovered. In taking responsibility for his own death he takes responsibility for his own life and the way he chooses to live it. this is the real meaning of authenticity. rather than as people who will inevitably become old and near death if they survive long enough. Only by realizing that he is the wholly unique possibility of his own death does a person cease to treat himself as though he is a copy of the next man and of all men.104 How to Be an Existentialist Young people tend to view themselves as a distinct group also. No doubt this attitude is part of the arrogance of youth and the young can be excused it on the grounds that they are immature and naïve. It is only when a person fully realizes that he must die and acts in accordance with this realization that he truly begins to exist and live in his own right.
This is what Shakespeare meant when he wrote. The overman is a person who. the life of the person who has embraced his mortality may be no different from that of his neighbour who has not. many times. still die. he has achieved authenticity. A true existentialist should never live as though he has forever.How to Be Authentic 105 affirmation of freedom demands that a person affirm his entire life without regret. never having really lived. then it follows that he must also affirm his mortality. 'Cowards die many times before their deaths. but in embracing his mortality he has made his life uniquely his own. p. however. I'm not going to add. frittering away his time and putting off indefinitely the things he really wants to do. I once knew a guy who always tried to live for the moment. The valiant never taste of death but once' (Julias Caesar. though fully aware of his mortality. He does not allow his fear of death to prevent him from taking certain risks and living his life to the full. A key characteristic of Nietzsche's overman is his recognition and acceptance of his own mortality. Outwardly. that he should live his life as though each day were his last. 82). II. ii). They die. having already died. This affirmation does not involve relishing the prospect of death – it is not a suicidal death wish – but it does involve a person acknowledging that his life is finite and the implications this has for the way he lives his life. as the risk implied by every step' (The Ethics of Ambiguity. immediately taking every pleasure and indulgence he could get his hands on. because a person can't achieve much in life if he doesn't make relatively long-term plans and wait a while for the best time to act. is not petrified with fear at the thought of it. Unadventurous people who fail to live life to the full because they fear death. however. Simone de Beauvoir argues that this attitude towards death is an essential characteristic of the adventurous person who values the affirmation of his freedom above timid self-preservation. He worshipped at the shrine of instant gratification and held all . at least in the Heideggerian sense of authentic being-towards-death. 'Even his death is not an evil since he is a man only in so far as he is mortal: he must assume it as the natural limit of his life. metaphorically.
seize the day. each day. belting-up in the car and avoiding assassination will probably buy you more time but that's not the point. be authentic. Quitting smoking. 'In the end. drunken. . is precious and utterly irreplaceable. It's the life in your years.106 How to Be an Existentialist patience. insolvent wreck. Carpe diem as the noble Romans used to say. He adhered admirably to his philosophy and had some wild times but he became an alcoholic before the age of thirty and met his death by misadventure. a great man who certainly made the most of his 56 years. a person should live his life recognizing that each moment. If a person really did live each day as though it were his last he would spend each day panicking while partying and rapidly reduce himself to a nervous. He regularly used the phrase 'deferred gratification' when deriding people who limited their drinking. prudence and moderation in contempt as deferred gratification. saved their money or retired early. there is no point in buying yourself more time if you don't make the most of it. As Abraham Lincoln.' Be a true existentialist. seize your freedom. 1 month and 24 days is supposed to have said but apparently didn't. eating bran. Although it is sensible to do what you can to prolong life. Nonetheless. it's not the years in your life that count.
we are stuck with what we are. The counsellor will encourage the client (as the patient / customer is called) to explore what he understands by 'making changes for the better'. I thought that by way of conclusion I'd return to the subject of existential counselling and say some more about it. failings and hang-ups. a lucrative practice in which good listeners with a knowledge of existentialism presume to help other people start living more honest. if only because it offers counsel on how to be an existentialist. you may feel you need counselling after reading this book. The broad aim of existential counselling is to help people make changes in their lives or in themselves that are for the better. positive. regret-free lives. a brass plate and a leather couch and setting yourself up as an existential counsellor. I mentioned existential counselling. If we are what we are then there is no hope of deliberately changing what we are. but if we are a product of our choices then there is always hope of overcoming and altering the way we are now. the existential counsellor will encourage the client to recognize that the broad aim of self-improvement is achievable. During the counselling process the client's ideas concerning what is better for him or her may well change.5 Existential Counselling Earlier. After all. In emphasizing that there is nothing fixed that we are. . habits. a wise expression. or you may be thinking of getting yourself a big beard (ladies included). that we are free at least to strive to overcome our present attitudes. As this book is kind of an exercise in existential counselling.
Existential Counselling and Psychotherapy in Practice. Sartre illustrated the method of existential psychoanalysis that lies behind existential counselling by writing several extremely detailed psychoanalytical biographies of famous French writers. but must not involve bullying the client into confronting hard existential truths before he or she is ready to confront them. Jean Genet and Gustave Flaubert.108 How to Be an Existentialist One of the main tasks of the existential counsellor is to convince the client that he or she is free in the way described. to help his or her clients at the pace of an over-paid slug on tranquillizers. on piecing together the client's unique biography. The process will involve something like philosophical debate. however. of course. As Emmy Van Deurzen-Smith says in her book. Just like Sartre with his French writers. The aim is not to say this person is depressed or neurotic or whatever. has a capacity for self-improvement. 'Basic counselling skills such as an ability to listen rather than guess. as such. Apart from probing into the lurid psychological depths of Charles Baudelaire. to reflect rather than distort the client's meaning and to reassure rather than confuse the client are assumed' (Existential Counselling and Psychotherapy in Practice. Existential counselling places huge emphasis on delving into the client's past. Here is the big difference between this book and existential counselling. like a good lover. always in a counsellor's financial interest to be slow and gentle. A person's choices can be traced back to a fundamental or original choice of himself made in response to a particular childhood event that occurred at the dawning of his self-consciousness. is slow and gentle. 236). and. It is. The event may have . pitched at whatever level the client can cope with. but to discover his unique fundamental choice of himself. A good existential counsellor. p. these biographies show how existential psychoanalysis ought to be conducted. existential counsellors make every effort to preserve the individual rather than pigeonhole him and explain him away by applying a bunch of universal psychological labels to a description of his unique personality. This book just lays the hard existential truths on the line with little or no soft soap or bubble bath.
hopefully for the better. In fact. If. By screwing their . by establishing a new fundamental choice of himself.Existential Counselling 109 been trivial in itself – a fight with his sister over the last tea cake. the author of Madame Bovary. A person's fundamental choice is arbitrary and groundless but it is nonetheless a choice of self that establishes grounds for all subsequent choosing. then hearing Flaubert's story can only reinforce your confidence in that particular well-worn prejudice. Question: How many existential counsellors does it take to change a light bulb? Answer: One. Gustave Flaubert. which is why Sartre wrote just about the longest book ever written dissecting every minuscule detail of Flaubert's life. It wasn't brought on by an existential counsellor. like me. According to Sartre. Sartre thinks you need to know absolutely everything about Flaubert's family background to understand his radical conversion. times and potty training. we will have to make do with a potted version of Flaubert's family history. had a radical conversion in his early twenties that totally changed the direction of his life. however. you often find yourself saying. It is worth repeating that each person's fundamental choice is unique and can only be discovered through a detailed exploration of their personal history. In order to keep this book mercifully short. but by events in Flaubert's life reaching a crisis point. but both the counsellor and the light bulb must believe change is possible. The actions that a person chooses in response to his fundamental choice comprise his fundamental project. Sartre.' even before you know the details of the sad case that is the damaged youth confronting you. however. 'I blame the parents. Laing and other existential psychoanalysts hold that it is possible for a person to undergo a radical conversion in which he redefines himself. for example – but his response to it is hugely significant in that it is the start of a process in which he chooses actions that affirm or deny his view of himself as a certain type of person. To understand Flaubert's radical conversion you need to know a bit about his family background. Each person's capacity to have a radical conversion is of the utmost importance as far as the process of existential counselling is concerned.
unlike most crap parents. Not only that. successful doctor several years her senior. futureless infant received. to feel that he had a purpose. By the time Gustave arrived. Pacified. His granddad was heartbroken. who eventually became a successful doctor like his dad. At first the marriage was happy. so Gustave was a disappointment. Gustave fared no better with his dad. Achille. but as the two siblings who immediately preceded him had died. however. His family further reinforced the low self-esteem at the heart of his listlessness by viewing him as an idiot – hence the ironic title of Sartre's vast book. to feel that he could be something more than an object his mum was obliged to powder and pamper. at least until he underwent his radical conversion. Caroline wanted a daughter. AchilleCléophas Flaubert. The dad had not loved his daughter enough to want to go on living. whose attentions and hopes were directed towards Gustave's older brother.110 How to Be an Existentialist child up. Caroline resurrected her dad and so eased her guilt by marrying his double. a female companion to compensate for her lonely childhood. Gustave's intellectual development was painfully slow. He was unable to read at the age of seven. Achille. Caroline had lost a number of children and her husband was having affairs with various mistresses. There was little affection in the skilful care that the disappointing. domineering. overlooked as a person. Sartre identifies Flaubert's passivity as his fundamental choice of himself. Gustave was eventually taught to read by the local priest. The guilt Caroline felt over killing her mum was reinforced by the death of her dad when she was ten. Gustave was deeply jealous of smart arsed Achille. was born. Caroline doted on her husband and a son. He was not encouraged to respond. Flaubert's parents inadvertently helped him become one of the greatest figures in the history of literature. Though still passive in his general demeanour and given to meditative stupors . Caroline. a stiff. it aimed only at pacifying him. however. Gustave's granny died giving birth to his mum. The Family Idiot. baby Gustave was not expected to live.
like Flaubert. the existential counsellor aims to inspire the client to begin formulating strategies of overcoming and empowerment. The defining moment of Gustave's life occurred in 1844 when he suffered a nervous breakdown. the world and other people. . Achille-Cléophas decided his son would become a lawyer. he is not a fixed entity but the product of a fundamental choice that can be changed. he ceased to exist primarily for others and began to exist for himself. 'I only sweated a litre before. Passive as ever. The invalid. Incapacitated by this breakdown he was unable to pursue the career his dad had chosen for him.Existential Counselling 111 that made him appear a simpleton. His crisis. but now I'm going to pour out at least ten litres!' According to Frankl. like everyone. in helping him to discover that. In making the client aware of his inalienable freedom. was the opportunity for Gustave to finally free himself from his dad's domination and become a writer. possibly an epileptic fit. Viktor Frankl. The idiot was at last free to transform himself into a genius. was left to write. Gustave followed his dad's plan. gives us the example of a man who had a fear of sweating in the presence of others that caused him to sweat. Flaubert's crisis was a radical conversion to authenticity. Frankl encouraged him to choose an attitude of pride towards his capacity to sweat. Through an act that had the outward appearance of a mental collapse. being no good for anything better. Without asking Gustave what he thought about it. this strategy very quickly allowed the man to free himself of his phobia. The existential counsellor. an act of self-assertion in which he finally dispensed with his passivity. his choice not to choose. all the while developing a psychosomatic nervous disorder. Gustave grasped his new ability and by the age of nine he was writing stories. possibly self-induced. To say to himself when he met people who triggered his anxiety. but was in fact a positive affirmation of freedom. For Sartre. At this point the counsellor can advise the client on possible patterns of behaviour that he might adopt in order to bring about positive changes in his relationship with himself. his bad faith.
in fact. he might be better to preserve his arachnophobia. for example. in a certain sense. Achieving an intellectual awareness of his own freedom might. to believe the grass is greener on the other side. If he lives in Australia. admittedly. This is not surprising given that the main object of the existential counselling exercise is personal empowerment. Strategies will occur to the client as a result of realizing he is free. The very fact that the client is formulating his own strategies shows he is making progress. is fundamental . it follows from the fact that we are always in constant process of becoming that we will never be completely fulfilled – not even if we win the lottery. be choosing himself as a person who has no choice but to fear spiders. He reaffirms this choice every time he acts fearfully towards spiders by killing them. There will always be something more we want. Bush and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair now suffer from Iraqnophobia for which there is no cure. nothing to fear from common house spiders. swim with dolphins and drive a tank over a bus. will be difficult at first – from all behaviour that confirms his false belief that his fear is something he is stuck with. he also seeks to reconcile him or her to certain basic facts of the human condition as identified by existentialism. a client may not need the counsellor's advice to develop strategies.) Realizing he is not stuck with being a person who fears spiders. For example. because to hanker after something. where there are various poisonous spiders including the deadly black widow. be a client's first step towards conquering his arachnophobia.112 How to Be an Existentialist In many cases. the client will realize that he must. Phobias and neuroses are not always bad. something we feel is missing. they can protect us and incline us in useful directions. (Former American President George W. The solution to his phobia is to refrain by an act of will – which. Existential counselling always encourages clients to take the initiative. To the same degree that the existential counsellor aims to put the client in touch with his or her freedom and capacity to change. that radical change is possible and so on. however. By abandoning this self-perpetuating project of irrational fear he should eventually realize that there is.
Introduction to Counselling. Existential counselling has the optimistic goal of seeking to show the client that his or her life is an unwritten book that only he or she can write.Existential Counselling 113 to a creature that lacks itself in the present and continually strives to be at one with itself in the future. does not view anxiety as a dangerous or neurotic condition. existential counselling aims to show people that they do not have to put up with what they are. anxiety or angst is an inescapable feature of realizing we are free. But what must be understood is what follows from this belief in the essential meaninglessness of life. it aims to show them that the very fact of being alive presents us all with certain unavoidable difficulties. . In one sense. Belkin in his book. according to the existentialists. Accepting a degree of anxiety might well save a person from an upward spiral of anxiety where he gets anxious about being anxious. Belkin writes: 'The existential counsellor. We have already seen that. that only people themselves can give their lives any meaning through the goals they set themselves. the choices they make and the actions they take. this seems a strange aim for a form of counselling that is backed by a philosophy claiming life to be essentially absurd and meaningless. anxiety is seen as a fundamental condition of existence. The job of the counsellor is to help the client accept anxiety as part of his or her fundamental being' (Introduction to Counselling. Rather. In another sense. 187). Namely. p. unlike the psychoanalytic or behavioural counsellor. Consider the attitude of existential counselling to anxiety. Life has only the meaning you choose to give it. as expressed by Gary S. Existential counselling works with the assumption that people would spare themselves a great deal of further misery if they only realized this fact instead of thinking that there is something seriously wrong with them because they don't feel extremely happy and satisfied all of the time. The ultimate aim of existential counselling is to help clients discover meaning in their lives. On the face of it.
Allen, Woody, Side Effects (New York: Ballantine, 1991). Belkin, Gary S., Introduction to Counselling (Dubuque, IA: W. C. Brown, 1988). Camus, Albert, The Myth of Sisyphus, trans. Justin O'Brien (London: Penguin, 2006). Cox, Gary, The Sartre Dictionary (London and New York: Continuum, 2008). de Beauvoir, Simone, The Ethics of Ambiguity, trans. Bernard Frechtman (New York: Citadel Press, 2000). Dickens, Charles, Bleak House (London: Penguin, 2003). Donne, John, Meditation XVII, in Donne, Selected Poems (London: Penguin, 2006). Dostoevsky, Fyodor, Crime and Punishment, trans. David Magarshack (London: Penguin, 2007). Flaubert, Gustave, Madame Bovary, trans. Geoffrey Wall (London: Penguin, 2003). Golomb, Jacob, 'Nietzsche on Authenticity', Philosophy Today, vol. 34, 1990. Heidegger, Martin, Being and Time, trans. John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson (Oxford: Blackwell, 1993). Kierkegaard, Søren, Concluding Unscientific Postscript, trans. Alastair Hannay (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009). Laing, Ronald D., The Divided Self: An Existential Study in Sanity and Madness (London: Penguin, 1990). McCulloch, Gregory, Using Sartre: An Analytical Introduction to Early Sartrean Themes (London and New York: Routledge, 1994).
Merleau-Ponty, Maurice, Phenomenology of Perception, trans. Colin Smith (London and New York: Routledge, 2002). Murdoch, Iris, Sartre: Romantic Rationalist (London: Fontana, 1968). Nietzsche, Friedrich, Beyond Good and Evil: Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future, trans. R. J. Hollingdale (London: Penguin, 2003). —, Ecce Homo: How One Becomes What One Is, trans. R. J. Hollingdale (London: Penguin, 2004). —, The Gay Science, trans. Walter Kaufmann (New York: Vintage Press, 1974). —, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, trans. Graham Parkes (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005). Plato, The Republic, trans. Desmond Lee (London: Penguin, 2003). Sartre, Jean-Paul, The Age of Reason, trans. David Caute (London: Penguin, 2001). See also Roads to Freedom. —, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on Phenomenological Ontology, trans. Hazel E. Barnes (London and New York: Routledge, 2003). —, The Childhood of a Leader, in Sartre, The Wall, trans. Lloyd Alexander (New York: New Directions, 1988). —, Existentialism and Humanism, trans. Philip Mairet (London: Methuen, 1993). —, The Family Idiot vols. 1–5, trans. Carol Cosman (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981). —, In Camera (No Exit or Behind Closed Doors), trans. Stuart Gilbert, in In Camera and Other Plays (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1990). —, Nausea, trans. Robert Baldick (London: Penguin, 2000). —, Roads to Freedom. A trilogy of novels, including: The Age of Reason, The Reprieve and Iron in the Soul (London: Penguin, 2001, 2005 & 2004 respectively). —, The Transcendence of the Ego, A Sketch for a Phenomenological Description, trans. Andrew Brown (London and New York: Routledge, 2004). —, Truth and Existence, trans. Adrian van den Hoven (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995). —, War Diaries: Notebooks from a Phoney War, 1939–1940, trans. Quintin Hoare (London: Verso, 2000). van Deurzen-Smith, Emmy, Existential Counselling and Psychotherapy in Practice (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2002).
Further Reading
Blackham, Harold John, Six Existentialist Thinkers (London and New York: Routledge, 1991). Camus, Albert, The Outsider (The Stranger), trans. Joseph Laredo (London: Penguin, 2000). Cox, Gary, Sartre: A Guide for the Perplexed (London and New York: Continuum, 2006). —, Sartre and Fiction (London and New York: Continuum, 2009). Detmer, David, Freedom as a Value: A Critique of the Ethical Theory of Jean-Paul Sartre (La Salle, IL: Open Court, 1986). Earnshaw, Stephen, Existentialism: A Guide for the Perplexed (London and New York: Continuum, 2006). Frankl, Viktor E., Man's Search for Meaning (London: Rider, 2004). Laycock, Stephen, Nothingness and Emptiness: A Buddhist Engagement with the Ontology of Jean-Paul Sartre (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 2001). Loy, David, Lack and Transcendence: The Problem of Death and Life in Psychotherapy, Existentialism and Buddhism (New York: Prometheus, 2003). Panza, Christopher and Gale, Gregory, Existentialism for Dummies (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2008). Vatican Index of Prohibited Books (Index Librorum Prohibitorum) and the works prohibited therein. Works by Bacon, Galileo, Descartes, Milton, Pascal, Locke, Voltaire, Hume, Rousseau, Flaubert, Zola, Sartre, etc. Warnock, Mary, Existentialism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992).
45. 111. 113 Bertolucci. Samuel 8. 16. 113 action 5. 62. Bernardo 19 Blair. 82–3. 95 being-towards-death 102. 102. 67 anguish 54–5. 64–5. 79. 61–2. 61–71. 70. 14. Charles 108 Beatles. 68. 76.Index aboutness 24 absence 29–30 absurdity 14–16. 18. 97–100. 81–2. 54–5. 56. 105 being-with-others see Mitsein Belkin. 82. 103–4. 77. 59. 91–106. 73 atheism 6. 36–7. 30. 69. 94 see also anxiety anti-authoritarian 6. 57–9. 20. 111 Allen. Karl 18 Baudelaire. 92. 73. Gary S. 113 see also anguish appearances 25–6 Aristotle 3 arrogance 41. 67. 73. 18 being 27–9. 39–40. 105. 21. 20. 66. 71. 111 bad faith 4. 98. 46. 75. 86. 71–2 being-for-others 14. 14. William 56 bloody mindedness 54 Bonham. 48. 73–9. Tony 112 blame culture 5. John 52 born again 100 borrowed being 32 . 78. 113 acceptance 8. 60. 90–4. 79. 86–8. 68. 18 authenticity 4. 104 ascetic ideal 98 assumptions 12. Woody 72 ambiguity 14. 63. 8 anti-depressants 89 anti-nihilism 14–15 anti-Semitism 76–7. 45. 81–9. 62. 93. 93. 16. 47–8. 15. 94 anxiety 14. 70. 35–6. 55 Bligh. 83. The 4 Beckett. 111–12 see also inauthenticity Barth. 95 addiction 31 affirmation 8. 55. 99–100. 8–10. 88. 104–5. 9–10. 43 being-in-situation 64–5.
110 defeat 45. 71–3. 45. 90. John 97 Dostoevsky. 28–9. Martin 18 Buddhism 72–3 Bugs Bunny 8–9 bullshit 3. 102–6. 86. 103–4 embarrassment 14. 94 couch-potatoes 50 counselling see existential counselling courage 3. 20. 94. 53. 67. 59. 99–100 cowardice 18. 93. 70. 30. buffeted 83. 88. 30. 89 contentment 36 contingency 70–6. 77. 89–91 disability 49–51 disappointment 14. 35 depression 30. 71. 85. 23. 105 death 3. 15–16. 99 drugs 31. 44 elderly people 89. 25. 39. 65. Charles 8 differently able 51 dignity 3. 16. 18. Franz 24–5 Buber. 42 choice 3. 108 desire 14. 107–13 choice. 105 damaged youth 109 dangerous ideas 6 Dasein (being-there) 102–3 de Beauvoir. 48. 39. fundamental 108–11 Christmas 78 Churchill. 43. 66 conflicted 68 conformity 91. 89–90 Donne. 31. 81–3. 68. Fyodor 18. 35–6 doing your best 57. 96 see also middle-class Brando. 70. 89–90 delusions 14. 9. 96 confession 67–8. Albert 8. 100–1 despair 35 determinism 46 Dickens. 93 coping strategy 55. 76. 91–2. Richard 40 bravery see courage Brentano. 75 Camus. 96. 25. 15. 44. Marlon 19 Branson. 111–12 enlightenment 10–11. 60 empowerment 27. 51. 27. Simone 8. 30–1. 36. 13. 43. 36. 98. 79. 5–6. 48–9. 58–9. 93. Winston 89 civil liberties 45 cleverness 9 commitment 64. 75. 51. 61. 16–18. 65. 46–7. 45 enthusiasm 64 eternal recurrence 100–1 . 47. 75. 93. 87. 38 dissatisfaction 15. 87. 35. 94–5. 54 embodiment 22. 78–9. 20–9. 96 consciousness 17. 89. 43 Catholic Church 6 cats 15 causal order 46 celebrities 89 celibacy 98 charity 40. 52–5. 100 confidence 27 conflict 43–4. 31–6. 104 enslavement 39. 112 café 16. George W. 91 consciousness.118 Index bourgeois 73. 14 Bush. 60–1.
16. 113 see also future-past future-past 33. 53. 111–3 existential psychoanalysis 69. John 108 genius 111 get real 18. 28–30. 76 fear 40. 105–7. 14. 65–7. 92–4. 66–7. 24. 84. 42–9. 111–13 Freud. 79–80. 67. 23. Jacob 99 good faith 66. 24. 77 Golomb. 27. 35–6. 54–5. 68. Sigmund 59. 70. 36. 89–91 existence 5. 88 failure 49. 35. 38. 45. 50. 79–80. 27–33. Mel 44 God 14. 74. 109 future 26. 46 see also freedom freedom 3. 72. 97. 69. 63–4. 69–70 excuse culture 50–1 excuses 9. 70. 42. 94. 12–15. 53–8. 75–6. 5. 68. 113 existential 12. 113 hard truths 94 see also existential truths Hegel. 82 Fascism 54. 83. 10. 89 guilt 3. 72 Existential Alka-Seltzer 72 existential counselling 69. 101. 89. 107. 94. 99. 38. 16. 82 happiness 14–15. 18–19. 20. 35–6. 30. 100–1 ethics 62 see also morality evaluations 27. 36–7. 81–3. 60–1. 102. 51. 55–7. 82. 91. 90. 62. 82. 97. 61. 95–7 facticity 48. 110 guru 80 hang-ups 69. 51. 100. 46–7. 96–102. 30. 89. 36–7. 8. 25. 108 see also hard truths existentialism 1–14. 76. 107 happily ever after 15. 87. 90–2. Gustave 108–11 flirt 59–62. 74–5. 89 Gibson. 85–8. 44. 97. 34. Martin 16–17. 77. 43–9. 21–4. 59. 65–6. 28–9. 60. 107–9. 47 futurizing intention 34 Genet. 93–4. 92 fairytale 14. 51–5. 76. 35–6. 112 fundamental project 73. 93–4. 16–22. 49. 86 greed 50. 81–3. 112 existentialist 1–10. 105 Flaubert. 14–19. 17. 50. 76. 79. 41. 46. 105–8. Viktor 111 free will 1. 71–4. Friedrich 20 Heidegger. 72. 102–5 . 113 existentialist ideal 92 expectation 21. 92–3. 90. 68. 105. 66. 61. 101–2. 83–4. 93. 39. 40. 39–40. 111–12 feminism 17–18 fight-or-flight 53 finitude 102–3. 14. 68–9. 79. 81 formula for greatness 101–2 Frankl. 32–6. 62–3.Index 119 eternity 73. 82. 97 fulfilment 14. 64. 36–7. 70. 89 getting a grip 83. 99 evasion 59. 82. 70. 79. 108–9 existential truths 10. 30. 55. 14–15.
David 20 humiliation 39 Husserl. 88. 97 Laycock. 68–9. 102–3 indeterminacy 14. 79. the 44 love 13. 79. 85. 25. 13. 8–9. 77–8 Lincoln. 67. 84 homosexual 53. Karl 16 Jews 76. 10. 51–2 metaphysical 17–18. 65–6. 79. 56. 112 human rights 45 Hume. 82. 71 logic-chopper 97 look. 101 middle-class 58. 20–1 Loy. 70. 81–4. 75. Gabriel 18 Marx. 63. 43. D. 91. 102 hypocrisy 79 idealism 17–18. 76 Index Librorum Prohibitorum 6 insanity 52–3 see also madness insincerity 63 intellectual 7. 17–18. 57. 96 history 12. 9–10. 78–9. 92–4. H. 97. 109–10 holy grail 9. 98. 103. 91–6. 69. 28–30. 101 Love is . Groucho 2 Marx. 93–4 immaturity 104 immortality 73. 107 hope 5. 75. 16. 17. 30. 73–4 see also insanity Manning. 35. 102. 113 Medieval 89 Merleau-Ponty. 109 Lawrence of Arabia 97 Lawrence. R. Gregory 26 McDonald's 5–6 meaninglessness 14. 89 Jaspers. Karl 2 maths 22 McCulloch. 92. 14. 51. 92–5. 73. 113 Laing. Edmund 24–5. 67.120 Index Hendrix. 86. 69–70. 61. Maurice 16. 93 intentional object 24–5 intentionality 24 irony 14. Jimi 52 hero 44. 19. 81 honesty 3–4. 96. 89. 20–1. 14. 69–70. 46. 18. 107 human condition 8. 97. 104 inauthenticity 6. 73. . 26 ignorance 11. 66. 70. 35–6. 40. Søren 16. 94 irresponsibility 4. 42. 88. Bernard 52 Marcel. 112 intelligence 70. 86–7. 19–21. . Abraham 106 logic 13. 94. 89. 18. 41. 78 see also bourgeois middle-class heaven 78 Mitsein (being-with) 44 modesty 40–1 Monty Python 78 . 76. 69–70. 34–5. Immanuel 20. David 72 madness 19. 54. 47. 89 lies 58. 15. 97 Kant. Stephen 73 laziness 50. D. 19. 74 lack 26. 26 Kierkegaard.
110–1 past 26. 19. 76. 111 Protagoras 27 psychic duality 58–9 psychoanalysis 59 see also existential psychoanalysis psychosis 19 . 112–13 Nietzsche. 113 pretending 82. 113 other people 3. 105 nihilism 15. 97–8. 21. 93. 32–4. 33 phenomenology 2. 31 nothingness 17. 97. 77 Murdoch. 98 personal goals 40. 28–9. 111 see also the Other Other. 100–1. 19–20. 86 obligation 48–9 old age 104 oppression 3. the 71–3 Nazis 16. 45. 81. 66. 43–4. 99 negation 26. 52. 98. 102–5 motives 27. 97. 36. 47 peace of mind 4. 46. 48. 12–14. 111 overman 99. 89. 108 see also past-future past-future 35. 24. 79. 36. 58. 26. 67–8. 19. 81. 62 see also other people overcoming 9. 39–41. 16–17. 30. 75–7. 107. 32–3. 36–7. 10. 98–100. 46–7.Index 121 morality 3. 76. 31. 93–5. 42–3. 94 pointlessness 14. 32–5. 14–15. 106 Parachute Regiment 19 paradise 15 paradox 20. 28–9 negligence 89 neurosis 108. 66–7. 70. 96. 45–6. Friedrich 7–9. 5. 62. 101 see also ethics morbid 102 mortality 8. 66. 102–3. 46–7 prejudices 77 presence 32–3 present 30. 84 pride 39–40. 18. 43. 76. 51–2 politicians 74 pornography 42 possibilities 13. Iris 77 mysticism 72 naming 72 Napoleon 99–100 nausea. 16. 73. 43 phenomenological 4. 85. 84. 103. 69. 62–3. 107. 72. 69 moustaches 74–5. 46 passivity 27. 113 phobias 111–12 Plato 3. 41. 84–6 nobility 89–91. 10. 75. 15. 113 pessimism 16. 29. 51 philanthropy 40 philosophy 2–4. 79 optimism 14. 60. 31. 91. 106 noble ideal 98 non-being 21. 73. 97–102. 62. the 37–40. 78–9 political correctness 17. 26. 105 see also Übermensch paedophiles 53 panic 52–5. 99. 20. 62. 54. 70. 71–2. 24. 92. 13. 16. 7–8. 59. 104. 20 phenomenologist 23–5. 49.
44–5. 17–18. 48. 18. 97–8. 102 social convention 3 society 72–3. 77–9. 76–7 responsibility 1. 48–55. 77–8 sanity 2. 77 Royal Marines 19 Royal Navy 56 salauds 74–5. 53–5. 62. 104. 62–3 Romans 106 Roquentin. 88–9. 51. 36. 90–2. 35. 79 self-improvement 107–8 self-mastery 89 self-neglect 50. 57. 48–9. 105 super-bourgeoisie 78 superfluity 71 suspension of disbelief 84 sympathy 89 . 104–5. 10. 13. 105 shame 14. 49. 111 self-consciousness 10.122 Index questioning 8. 73. 32–3. 76. 107 religion 3. 89 self-pity 51 self-respect 89 selling out 4 sense of humour 52 sexual preference 52–3. 109–11 Raskolnikov 99–101 reality 3. 79. 100. 64. 39–40. 68 Shakespeare. 43–4. 73 Sartre. Antoine 71. 36. 57–9. 108 self-deception 58–9 self-denial 98 self-distraction 59. 44. 113 schizophrenia 19 Schopenhauer. Don 74 radical conversion 82. Arthur 16 Scott. 97–100. 36. 82–5. 8. 99 Reeve. 25. 8. 93. 97 sociology 17 Socrates 3. 10. 73. 99. Bon 52 seize the day (carpe diem) 106 self-assertion 86. 69. 60–1. Frank 5 sincerity 65–7. 77–8 risk 105 robot 3. 16–21. 85. 67. 88–9. 83. Jean-Paul 1. 80 repression 59. 98 resentment 41–2 respect 40. 91. 94. 12 stereotype 66 stoicism 36 stupidity 79 substantiality 76–7. 81 Sisyphus 15–16 situatedness 82. 108–11 satisfaction 29. 24–8. 81–5. 51. 85–7 suicide 16. 39–40 shit creek 12 showing off 41 shyness 41 Sinatra. 81–7. 73. William 19. 30. 55. 6. 92. 16. 94 reality TV 89 re-evaluation 38. 22. 63–70. 4–6. 77. 87. 75. 102. 96–9. 4–8. 61–75. 14. Christopher 49 regret 10. 38–40. 70 self-evasion 59 self-help 5. 69–70. 32–3. diminished 53 rights 45. 68. 40. 104 responsibility. 35–6. 28 Quixote. 67.
91. 109 . Margaret 74 Tillich. Paul 18 time 20–1. 38–9. Duke of 89 will power 52. 82. 81 transcendence-transcended 42. 54. 66 transcendental idealism 26 translucency 58–9 Übermensch 99 see also overman uncertainty 4 unconscious 59 undifferentiated being 26 values 38.Index 123 talent 40–1. 92 will to power 9. William 44 warrior 91 weak mindedness 19. 28. 105 tongue in cheek 63 transcendence 32. 64. 46–8. 54. 38. 42–3. 51. 103. 27. 104 youth 103–4. 61 Wellington. Emmy 108 vanity 40–1 vertigo 55 violence 79 virtues 89–90 vomit 52 waiter 62–5. 46. 46 see also time Thatcher. 98–9 Van Deurzen Smith. 96 yesterday 35. 84 Wallace. 89 teasing 62 temporality 31. 63. 105–6 see also temporality tomorrow 35. 88. 60–1. 105 World War II 43. 42. 73. 98–9 wishing 15–16. 100. 63–7. 30–5. 100–1.