JeanPaul_Sartre_JeanPaul_Sartre_Basic_Writing

48Jean-Paul Sartre: Basic WritingsM. SartreWe are dealing with a morality of freedom. So long as there is no contradiction betweenthat morality and our philosophy, nothing more is required. Types of commitmentdiffer from one epoch to another. In one epoch, in which to commit oneself was tomake revolution, one had to write the Manifesto. In such an epoch as ours, in whichthere are various parties, each advertising itself as the revolution, commitment doesnot consist in joining one of them, but in seeking to clarify the conception, in order todefine the situation and at the same time to try to influence the different revolutionaryparties.M. NavilleThe question one must ask oneself, arising from the point of view that you have justindicated, is this: Will not your doctrine present itself, in the period now beginning, asthe resurrection of radical-socialism? This may seem fantastic, but it is the way inwhich one must now frame the question. You place yourself, by the way, at all sortsof points of view; but if one looks for the actual point of convergence, to which allthese points of view and aspects of existential thought are tending, I have the impressionthat it turns out to be a kind of resurrection of liberalism. Your philosophy seeks torevive, in the quite peculiar conditions which are our present historical conditions,what is essential in radical-socialism, in liberal humanism. What gives it its distinctivecharacter, is the fact that the social crisis of the world has gone too far for the oldliberalism, it puts liberalism to torture, to anguish. I believe that one could find severalrather profound reasons for this evaluation, even if one kept within your own terms.It follows from the present exposition, that existentialism presents itself as a form ofhumanism and of a philosophy of freedom, which is at bottom a pre-commitment, andthat is a purpose undefined. You put in the forefront, as do many others, the dignityof man, the eminent value of personality. These are themes which, all things considered,are not so far from those of the old liberalism. To justify them, you make distinctionbetween two meanings of “the condition of man” and between two meanings ofseveral terms which are in common use. The significance of these terms has, however,a whole history, and their equivocal character is not the result of chance. To rescuethem, you would invent new meanings for them. I will pass over all the specialquestions of philosophic technique which this raises, interesting and important asthey are; and, confining myself to the terms that I have just heard, I will fasten uponthe fundamental point which shows that, in spite of your distinction between twomeanings of humanism, the meaning that you hold is, after all, the old one.