Sartre's Anarchist Philosophy

despair!

From: https://iai.tv/articles/sartres-anarchist-philosophy-auid-1242

Is Existentialism closer to Anarchism than Marxism?

Every philosopher must run the gauntlet of time. Philosophical ideas fall in and out of favor, but the acid test is whether we continue to debate a philosopher’s ideas long after they have left the scene. The anniversary of Jean-Paul Sartre’s birthday, almost forty years since his death, is an appropriate moment to look back on the legacy of a philosopher whose work helped to define an era, and whose ideas continue to resonate with the political climate today. Professor Richard Falk places Sartre alongside Noam Chomsky and Edward Said as one of the few individuals worthy of the title ‘public intellectual’. Yet towards the end of his life, even as Sartre moved further in the direction of political engagement, he lamented that his politics were not radical enough; perhaps that is why Sartre’s political philosophy is so highly disputed.

Since the publication of Critique of Dialectical Reason in 1960, scholars have largely interpreted Sartre’s political philosophy as ‘existential Marxism’: a critical appropriation of Marxism. Sartre encouraged this reception by often professing his affinity with Marxism, even stating that existentialism was parasitic to Marxism, a point he later retracted. But commentators who emphasize the influence of Marx overlook the signs of Sartre’s skepticism. Far from being a supporter of the French Communist Party, he rejected outright the dogmatic Marxism of dialectical materialism underpinning its ideology.

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"If one reads my books, one will realize that I have not changed profoundly, and that I have always remained an anarchist."

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While Marx’s influence is overemphasized, the role of anarchism deserves far more airtime than it currently gets. Sartre said it himself: “if one reads my books, one will realize that I have not changed profoundly, and that I have always remained an anarchist”. Not only do Sartre’s anarchist undertakings underscore his political positions, from his earliest writings all the way through to the post-war period, they also provide a far more radical foundation for his ideas.

The clearest anarchist element in Sartre’s political thought is the pursuit of a society free from authoritarianism. In the early 1950s, Sartre began sketching out his vision for an ideal society, brought about by the overthrow of existing systems of oppression through revolutionary activity. In the Critique, Sartre argues that the authority-oppression paradigm is made possible by institutionalization, where groups become conditioned to eschew individual freedom, adopting serialities and their concomitant social impotence. Individual freedom is immobilized by this process but not vanquished; the potential to reform as a group-in-fusion and direct their praxis towards an ideal survives.

Sartre’s anarchist contemporaries condemned institutions which were based on coercion and authoritarianism. The state and centralized authority received the brunt of their scrutiny, with many believing that the state was illegitimate, had no right to exist, and its abolishment would eliminate many social evils. The same concerns can be seen today in the activities of the Occupy Movement, the Invisible Committee, and the Tarnac 9, all of which have come to be known as Insurrectionary Anarchism. Sartre’s account of group formation demonstrates that not only did he share such concerns about coercion and authority, he argued forcefully against the oppression of institutionalized authority long before contemporary anarchists took up the cause. Sartre’s revolutionary solution likewise entailed the eradication of the existing order.

Yet it is the degree of coercion that interested Sartre most. The philosopher’s critique of the state was that it attempted to convert human beings into automata, extending the machine metaphor to associate institutionalized bureaucracy with nefarious analytic reason. In his view, the practico-inert surrounds and conditions human existence through its seen and unseen apparatuses, representing a servitude to mechanical forces designed to quash individual freedom.

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“I have always been in agreement with anarchists, who are the only ones to have conceived of a whole man to develop through social action and whose chief characteristic is freedom”.

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In place of a state, anarchism advocates peaceful coexistence based on social freedom and our capacity for mutual aid, cooperation, respect, and communal relations. Sartre agreed, arguing that only individuals are sovereign, but that humans are united to each other and the world around them through their interactions, particularly in the workspace. According to Sartre, work is an essential attitude of human reality, founded on a need to collaborate with others based on an agreed mutual dependence. As he pointed out, “I have always been in agreement with anarchists, who are the only ones to have conceived of a whole man to develop through social action and whose chief characteristic is freedom”. While the individual is paramount, dependency prompts the being-outside-ourselves which is essential to Sartre’s concept of selfhood.

Sartre conceived the relation between humans and elements in the social sphere as ‘interest’. Interest is a univocal relation of interiority that provides the connection for humans to their environment. In contrast, subjectivity is derided as an abstraction: a verdict compelling everyone to willingly carry out the commands pronounced by society. For Sartre, interest is not our subjective, interior decisions concerning our existence; rather, it is the discovery of our being-outside-ourselves. There are no innate ideas or fixed essences, no ‘wheels in the head’ that direct our actions, as Max Stirner suggested. Instead, we are at all times situationally determined by others.

The final element of anarchist thought which I argue is echoed in Sartre’s political philosophy is the immediate and practical proposal for change: a socio-political theory that embraces, among other things, a notion of praxis. Indications of this praxis are embraced by anarchists today, including the decentralization of political and economic authority, worker self-management, and freedom of expression. There are several themes which reappear consistently throughout Sartre’s work, and the theory of praxis has to count among the most prevalent.

One of the foundational aspects of the Critique is Sartre’s desire to expose the profound dialectical relationship that unites praxis to the outside world. And on reviewing Sartre’s earlier work, we see that the intent of revolution is not only to alter the world, but to re-create our collective situation. In order to accomplish this task, praxis becomes essential, since praxis not only constitutes individual authenticity, it also eradicates the impotency of the practico-inert.

But what does Sartre mean by praxis? While the concept is somewhat nebulous, it should be understood as the historical whole determining our power at any given moment as it conditions our attitude toward an entire plethora of dichotomies, such as the possible and impossible. This occurs because praxis prescribes the limits of our actions as well as our possibilities for a future. For Sartre, the collectivity is faced with a choice to submit to the course of the world or contribute to the shaping of it. The force separating these paths is action. Action forces the individual to contextualize the event within a future possessed by everyone.

Having explored all of these shared traits, one thing is certain; Sartre’s political philosophy extends far beyond Marxism. Intrinsically linked to anarchist thought, Sartre believes that only bureaucratization, decentralization, and democratization, where the dominant forces renounce their grip on the social structure, can overcome the hegemonic, hierarchical, and oppressive nature of contemporary society.

William L. Remley
21st June 2019

There are 36 Comments

Been trying to make a valid point that this whole framing of Sartre as anti-authoritarian is highly misinformed given his record of abusing his position of power as a teacher in order to get impressionable young female students into his bed. This has been well documented.

Now someone will come up with the defense of Sartre as anarchist in the world of ideas... yet a lot in Sartre's writings pretend positing for a vague praxis... which is contradictory. If you're talking about anarchist praxis, about the anarchist Sartre in his praxis, then that's not the pure, ivory tower, world of ideas. It's ideas being confronted by real-world practice and behavior. And in the case of Professor Sartre's behavior...

If you think that Sartre's notion of praxis is vague, then you aren't making a good case for how informed you are...

  • Two people above the age of consent decide to have sex with each other.
  • In an entirely different era when standards differed to that of today.
  • Anyone here of any gender who hasn't wanted to get in the sack with at least one of their lecturers?

In one of his interviews he said he never failed any of his students.

"Two people above the age of consent decide to have sex with each other."

Pattern of influence, intellectual domination, linguistic mystification, MAKING BELIEVE IN IMPENDING SUCCESS AS ACTRESS/TOP MODEL, and yes, having your own trophy women (Simone the Beaver) acting as a helper to get these women to "decide" to get into your bed. All the signs of sex abuse are right there.

You're in denial.

Here's the thing. People -whether they like it or not- eventually have to make decisions for themselves without the support of a parent or guardian around them. That's part of growing up. It can't be avoided.
Well it can -but you're going to lend up living the live the life of a nun.

Phenomenologists are beyond morality. Learn some theory and THEN do your praxis!

meteorologists are beyond weather mkay

for real, agencies don’t need to allocate anything toward derailment with these quacks arround

what we desire to be true about sartre precedes what is true about sartre

all dead heroes, a bowl of soup.

I don't think so. I was less impressed with Sartre before reading more of his later works. In Search for a Method, Critique of Dialectical Reason, and his late interviews it is clear that his social and political theory is much closer to anarchism than Marxism. Not just in his quoted interview responses, but in his published works. But it does help that he called himself an anarchist and also specifically said that socialist revolution must be libertarian. Then when you add in all of his work on social issues like colonialism, anti-semitism, racism...

I'd really like to see a good argument regarding what is true about Sartre here. The one above is a fair criticism of him as a person and it is definitely documented, but the conclusion that his notion of praxis is vague or contradictory doesn't make any sense. But at least there's something there in that criticism.

in transit, so briefly… sartre still trapped in oblivion…

what is an anarchist?

i warm myelf by the stove and say out loud in the house of Being, "here too the gods are present"

more good argument later!

Staring at the wood stove where burns a copy of a book from mustachoed creepy fascist despot philosopher after reading a few absurd paragraphs out of his convoluted attempt at telling me "how to think", contemplating in the fire the flame of own being that doesn't need a State intellectual to validate its existence.

Sartre still trapped into oblivion? I guess you didn't hang out too much in academic over the past 15-20 years. Last time I saw students read it, it was nonetheless than an hyperreal iteration of Chad & Stacy. The college football quarterback reading a book by Sartre tipped by his trophy girlfriend. So much for oblivion, "fren".

You are very confused, fren. Back to your Minecraft praxis and Wikipedia education!

It's just that I got a hard time differentiating between "the IRL person" and the author's ideas, or his public persona, when it comes to an anarchist. That I got abusive behavior in real life is something very relevant to my anarchist living -incl. the relations I develop with others, my behavior- and something that can also be used to defame anarchists as "rapists". Same thing could be said about one authoritarian leftie dude that once told me horror stories of sex abuse in anarcho squats in Europe, therefore using these tall tales to absurdly conclude that "anarchy squats = sexual abuse", yet at the same time completely denying how sexual abuse is rampant in any kind of legally rented or owned spaces, and that property nowhere defends against abuse. YET if that shit was seen/experienced in anarchist squats, what does it tell people about these projects being any better than what's happening outside?

The point is to not be assuming how "anarchists make better lovers" but HOW they prove as better lovers in the first place. i.e. showing by the fucking example (pun intended). If you can't show any example, what is the worth of your ideas, or are they just beautiful big ideas?

Even then you're not really taking into consideration the whole of "the IRL person" ...here's a link to some IRL shit about Sartre: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Jean-Paul-Sartre#ref6426

I care more about the ideas and adapting them to my own ...much like the way this book does: https://philpapers.org/rec/ALLEAE-4 That would be a much more difficult task if Sartre's existentialism wasn't so easily adapted. But anyway, he did plenty of IRL things and even switched from writing novels to writing plays because of the way he thought about praxis. He's one of the most explicitly action-oriented philosophers there has been. He's also incredibly misrepresented, understudied, and attacked not only by his contemporary rivals (the PCF) but also by academics that just parrot post-structuralist (or Situationist) dismissals.

His influence also isn't limited to France and other European countries. This is another book I'm reading: https://www.press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/N/bo27527421.html

quite an impact for someone whose praxis is vague...

geez squee, why don't you go dig up his corpse already … MAKING ME UNCOMFORTABLE DUDE

i’m up for digging. i’ll help u out on that one if you help me out on another one ; )

lol... so the "praxis" he came up with in his life was to be radiating wide and far through academia, while also doing a few literary spin-offs like plays and novels. Cool.

"My praxis is entirely about writing books... about praxis... the praxis of writing books."

FULL circle, bro!

Soooo.... Squee, your criteria for the validity of any argument whatsoever is for it to take more than 5 minutes to read? All about volume of word inflation, not depth AND logic/consistency of reasoning?

they weren’t being literal, but you didn’t even manage to comprehend the literal meaning of what they said.
read again.

that's why.

Can't "spell out" an argument that's

1- form Wikipedia

2- takes less than 5 minutes (to read?)

Is this talking about clarity... or about volume?

But what about pirates?

I don’t know what all the fuss is here, I’m just saying it’s not worth my time to make a point that is easily made in a very accessible place

i felt uncomfortable looking at that video. there is nothing particular about this video that made me feel like this, just the particular vibe i was on. i felt as if i were peering into that as it was happening then. i didn’t feel immersed, as if i was there. i felt as if i was looking through a little window in my computer, and they were real, just happening right there. i’m not bullshitting you, i felt it, and i don’t use drugs, and it’s not a hallucination, it was just an eerie feeling i could quickly ignore and shake away by closing the browser and biting into a pizza. but is this how the first people who encountered film and cinema felt?

Your mastery of clickbait rhetoric is fantastic... where didja learn? Oh wait.

If it was in color you would have immediately snapped into pop-culture's Why is Everyone Soooo Serious Mode, giggling and shit.

A few resources include:

1. The Marxist Society of Greatest Britain
2. The Jean Paul Sartre's Ernesto Guevara Society of Great Britain for the Complete Perfect Man
3. The JPS Algerian National Liberation Front (FLN) Society at Whitechapel
4. The Cambridgeshire Jean Paul Sartre - Arlette Elkaïm Lover/Father Mistress/Daughter Society

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