JeanPaul_Sartre_JeanPaul_Sartre_Basic_Writing

Politics315these individuals form a group to the extent that they have a common interest, so that,though separated as organic individuals, they share a structure of their practico-inertbeing, and it unites them from outside. They are all, or nearly all, workers, and regularusers of the bus service; they know the time-table and frequency of the buses; andconsequently they all wait for the same bus: say, the 7.49. This object, in so far asthey are dependent upon it (breakdowns, failures, accidents), is their present interest.But this present interest—since they all live in the district— refers back to fuller anddeeper structures of their general interest: improvement of public transport, freezingof fares, etc. The bus they wait for unites them, being their interest as individuals whothis morning have business on the rive droite; but, as the 7.49, it is their interest ascommuters; everything is temporalised: the traveller recognises himself as a resident(that is to say, he is referred to the five or ten previous years), and then the busbecomes characterised by its daily eternal return (it is actually the very same bus, withthe same driver and conductor). The object takes on a structure which overflows itspure inert existence; as such it is provided with a passive future and past, and thesemake it appear to the passengers as a fragment (an insignificant one) of their destiny.However, to the extent that the bus designates the present commuters, it constitutesthem in their interchangeability: each of them is effectively produced by the socialensemble as united with his neighbours, in so far as he is strictly identical with them.In other words, their being-outside (that is to say, their interest as regular users of thebus service) is unified, in that it is a pure and indivisible abstraction, rather than a rich,differentiated synthesis; it is a simple identity, designating the commuter as an abstractgenerality by means of a particular praxis (signalling the bus, getting on it, finding aseat, paying the fare), in the development of a broad, synthetic praxis (the undertakingwhich unites the driver and conductor every morning, in the temporalisation which isone particular route through Paris at a particular time). At this moment of theinvestigation, the unit-being (être-unique) of the group lies outside itself; in a futureobject, and everyone, in so far as he is determined by the common interest, differentiateshimself from everyone else only by the simple materiality of the organism. Andalready, if they are characterised in their temporalisation as awaiting their being as thebeing of all, the abstract unity of their common tuture being manifests itself as otherbeingin relation to the organism which it is in person (or, to put it another way, whichit exists). This moment cannot be one of conflict, but it is no longer one of reciprocity;it must simply be seen as the abstract stage of identity. In so far as they have the sameobjective reality in the future (a minute later, the same for everyone, and the bus willcome round the corner of the boulevard), the unjustified separation of these organisms(in so far as it arises from other conditions and another region of being) determines