Haase_UZ_x007E_DTh (2).pdf - South African Theological Seminary

group Socialisme et Liberte. During the war Sartre wrote, L'etre et le Neant (1943, Being
and Nothingness), which expressed his philosophy that “existence is prior to essence.”
Sartre was certainly shaped by the war. He believed mankind was free, but responsible,
and that we live in a godless universe, where life has no meaning or purpose beyond the
goals and boundaries people establish for themselves. He believed we must detach
ourselves from ‘things’ to find real meaning in life.
Sartre came to know Albert Camus, who at the time held similar beliefs. They
remained friends until Camus turned away from Communism, marked by the publication
of Camus’ book, The Rebel, something that divided the two men after 1951. Following
WWII Sartre founded Les Temps Modernes (or, Modern Times), a monthly literary and
political review, and was involved in political activism. Sartre became thoroughly
engaged in politics, and endorsed Communism, though he never joined the party.
Sartre and Camus both experienced and wrote about the futility of life, a product of
having lived through the horrors of WWII. Sartre portrayed his life in, No Exit, as a hell.
Its last line has become well known: “Well, let’s get on with it” (Craig, 1994:60). Camus
too saw life as absurd. “At the end of his brief novel, The Stranger, Camus’s hero
discovers in a flash of insight that the universe has no meaning and there is no God to
give it one” (ibid. 60).
Sartre eventually took a prominent role in the struggle against French colonialism in
Algeria, becoming a leading supporter of the Algerian war of liberation. This stance
exposed the inconsistencies of his beliefs, however, as Sartre promoted an ethical
nihilism, and the irrelevance of ethics. After signing the Algerian Manifest -- a protest
against continuing French occupation of Algeria -- his views were called into question:
Sartre took up a deliberately moral attitude and
said it was an unjust and dirty war. His
left-wing political position which he took up
is another illustration of the same inconsistency.
As far as many secular existentialists have
been concerned, from the moment Sartre signed
the Algerian Manifesto he was regarded as an
apostate from his own position, and toppled
from his place of leadership of the avant-garde
(Schaeffer, 1990:58).
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University of Zululand, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa