JeanPaul_Sartre_JeanPaul_Sartre_Basic_Writing

304 Jean-Paul Sartre: Basic Writingsmercantile captitalism to the overthrow of capitalism by socialism. Sartre’sindividual is at the heart of this process. His free project is human praxis.In political reality the difference between a series and a group is frequentlyone of degree. Cooperation may be discerned between individuals incompetition and competition may be discerned between individuals incooperation. Also, groups and series may become one another. In a socialistrevolution the series that was the proletariat under capitalism becomes agroup. Crucially however, according to Sartre any group is in danger oflapsing into seriality. It follows that socialism is in danger of lapsing intocapitalism and the most severe political measures are needed.Sartre distinguishes between ‘the pledge’, ‘violence’ and ‘terror’ all ofwhich contribute to halting the regress of the group into seriality. The pledgeis a social contract between members of the group to further their collectiveinterests, and refrain from furthering their individual self-interest at theexpense of those collective interests. Violence is the infliction of pain ordeath on bodies exterior to the group that threaten to convert the group intoa series. Terror is pain and death exerted by the group on the group toeliminate the same threat. Terror is internalised violence.Terror is dialectically related to the pledge, because whoever makes thepledge further agrees to submit to terror. Indeed, he agrees to submit himselfto terror because in terror the individuals in the group are both the subjectsand the objects of terror.Although Critique of Dialectical Reason is designed as a synthesis ofexistentialism and Marxism, it admits of another reading; one which wouldhave appalled Sartre and one he certainly did not intend. The Critique maybe read as an unconscious synthesis of capitalism and socialism: themissing synthesis of the twentieth century. Arguably, the tenets ofexistentialism: the emphasis on the individual not society, freedom of choicenot economic determinism, the present projected into the future, not theburden of history, are all presuppositions of capitalism. We should not bewholly surprised by this if existentialism is a product of capitalism, if, forexample, it is a dimension of alienation. To allow this reading of the Critiquewe have to accept the lesson of What is Literature? that an author does nothave a monopoly over the interpretation of his own work.The extracts below are from Questions of Method and The Critique ofDialectical Reason I.