Sartre's second century

The New Sartre: A Postmodern Progenitor? 119
Fortunately there was Sartre. Sartre was our Outside, he was really the
breath of fresh air from the backyard [...]. And Sartre has never stopped
being that, not a model, a method or an example, but a little fresh air—a
gust of air even when he had just been to the Cafe* Flore—an intellectual
who singularly changed the situation of the intellectual. 41
Similarly, despite his previous criticisms of Sartre in the 1960s and
1970s, in the lead article for the commemorative fiftieth anniversary issue
of Les Temps modernes, Derrida expresses the "boundless gratitude" and
acknowledges the "immense debt" he and others owe to Sartre. He
confesses that in previous years he "wouldn't have dared" admit his
affection for Sartre and Les Temps modernes, but that he is now moved to
"do justice" to them and recognise the value of Sartre's philosophical
ceuvre. 42 Even Baudrillard, the arch-sceptic of postmodernity, acknowledges
the enormity of Sartre's influence on post-war French intellectual
life and how the "theory of commitment through Sartre in the 1960s [...]
had been more or less the point of departure for intellectuals". 43
Since his death in 1980, however, commitment has seemingly died
with Sartre. The postmodern condition presented by Baudrillard and others
is one in which apathy, nihilism, melancholy and withdrawal are seen as
appropriate responses to a prevailing situation characterised by meaninglessness,
simulation, hyperconformity and the absence of grand-narratives
that claim a better future for human society. In contrast with Baudrillard's
asemic political vision, that celebrates the death of meaning and the futility
of political action and engagement, Sartre's political itinerary is an
evolving story of progressive radicalisation, a ceaseless journey to explore
the radical possibilities and complex dimensions of freedom, with a view
to making the world a less alienating and oppressive home. Shortly before
his death, in the course of interviews with Benny Le\y (published in
March 1980 as VEspoir maintenant [Hope Now]), Sartre identifies hope
as a means of overcoming the malaise of apathy and despair that
characterises the postmodern world of the late twentieth century:
What with the third world war that can break out at any day, and the
wretched mess our planet has become, despair has come back to tempt me
with the idea that there is no end to it all, that there is no goal, that there
are only small, individual objectives that we fight for. We make small
revolutions, but there's no human end, there's nothing of concern to human
beings, there's only disorder [...]. In any event, the world seems ugly, evil,
41 Deleuze, Dialogues, 12.
42 Derrida, "II courait mort", 44,40 (my translations).
43 In Gane, Baudrillard: Critical and Fatal Theory, 17.