JeanPaul_Sartre_JeanPaul_Sartre_Basic_Writing

46Jean-Paul Sartre: Basic Writingsmisunderstand you more. The words “despair” and “abandonment” have a muchwider resonance in an existential context. And it seems to me that despair or anguishmeans, to you, something more fundamental than the responsibility of the man whofeels he is alone and has to make decisions. It is a state of consciousness of the humanpredicament which does not arise all the time. That one is choosing whom one is to be,is admitted, but anguish and despair do not appear concurrently.M. SartreObviously I do not mean that whenever I choose between a millefeuille and a chocolateéclair, I choose in anguish. Anguish is constant in this sense—that my original choiceis something constant. Indeed, this anguish is, in my view, the complete absence ofjustification at the same time as one is responsible in regard to everyone.QuestionerI was alluding to the point of view of the explanation published in Action, in which itseemed to me that your own point of view was somewhat weakened.M. SartreFrankly it is possible that my themes have been rather weakened in Action. It oftenhappens that people who come and put questions to me are not qualified to do so. I amthen presented with two alternatives, that of refusing to answer or that of acceptingdiscussion upon the level of popularisation. I have chosen the latter because, after all,when one expounds theories in a class of philosophy one consents to some weakeningof an idea in order to make it understood, and it is not such a bad thing to do. If one hasa theory of commitment one must commit oneself to see it through. If in truth existentialphilosophy is above all a philosophy which says that existence precedes essence, itmust be lived to be really sincere; and to live as an existentialist is to consent to pay forthis teaching, not to put it into books. If you want this philosophy to he indeed acommitment, you have to render some account of it to people who discuss it upon thepolitical or the moral plane.You reproach me for using the word “humanism.” I do so because that is how theproblem presents itself. One must either keep the doctrine strictly to the philosophicplane and rely upon chance for any action upon it, or else, seeing that people demand