Sartre at 100
By Thomas Riggins
Sartre.Org | Date not given
http://www.sartre.org/Articles/Sartreat100.htm
(Thomas Riggins is the book review editor of Political Affairs)
The French are honoring their most famous 20th century thinker
Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980). The French National Library in Paris is
mounting a major exhibition dedicated to his life and works. Although
Sartre had a rocky relationship with the French Communist Party he
considered himself a "Marxist" of sorts. The New York Times has even
weighed in with some opinions about this ("To Honor Sartre, France
Buffs A Pedestal the Writer Rejected" by Alan Riding, 3/16/05).
I can't say that Riding's article is always informative. Take this
observation, for example, regarding Sartre's image as a "Left Bank
intellectual." "Even for many French people, his embrace of Communist
causes placed him on the wrong side of history." This was at a time
when a fourth of the French were voting for Communists, so its also
true that many French people (and not only the French) think he was on
the right side of history.
Those causes, by the way, were for world peace, anti-racism,
anti-imperialism, and freedom for the colonial peoples. Whatever may
have happened to Communism these were (and are) the right causes. As
for "causes," we can learn something from Sartre when we reflect on
his statement that "if I ask myself `Will the social ideal as such,
ever become a reality?' I cannot tell, I only know that whatever may
be in my power to make it so, I shall do; beyond that, I can count
upon nothing." You can't be on the wrong side of that.
Riding observes that Sartre's reputation is approaching that of the
great French pantheon (which he may soon join) of Voltaire, Hugo and
Zola. But Riding shows his true colors when he states that as
"political visionaries," Raymond Aron (the conservative pro-US cold
war intellectual) and Albert Camus "stand taller because their view of
freedom was untainted by association with Stalinism or Maoism." Guilt
by association! While Camus couldn't bring himself to back the right
of the Algerians to throw the French out, Sartre risked his life (he
survived a bomb plot) speaking out against French repression in
Algeria. So much for standing tall!
Camus died young, while he was still developing, so I don't want to be
too judgmental about him. But Aron was a typical conservative. He
supported the so-called "Free World." He is dead so I don't know how
he would think about the "freedom" we are bombing the people of Iraq into.
Riding asks "is Sartre remotely relevant today?" He seems to think
not. But this is a difficult question. He seems to base his judgment
on the fact that Sartre is no longer fashionable or as fashionable as
he once was. This is a different question from relevance. Sartre was
both a popular writer and a philosopher. His big philosophical tomes
(Being and Nothingness: The Critique of Dialectical Reasoning) were
never best sellers. He articulated a philosophy of human freedom known
as "existentialism" and tried to hook this up with Marxism. I think as
long as there is a struggle to attain a more just and free world, and
as long as society is dominated by class struggle and exploitation,
serious people will find Sartre's philosophy relevant even if they do
not ultimately accept it.
Riding briefly outlines some of Sartre's politics but his readers will
get the wrong impression from his presentation. He writes that Sartre
played no political role until after the liberation of Paris and that
he "cheerfully" produced his plays and books during the German
occupation after having been a prisoner of war for "a few months." The
implication is that Sartre did not do his duty. Riding fails to
mention that Sartre did have a role in the Resistance during the
occupation. He ended up with a minor role because the Resistance was
practically run by the Communist Party and Sartre was unwilling to
commit himself, as pointed out by Thomas Baldwin (The Oxford Companion
to Philosophy) to the Party or the Gauillists. After the war no one
thought Sartre derelict in his duty.
Riding next wishes to put Sartre "in the dock." "Placed in the dock
today," he writes, Sartre would face two charges: between 1952 and
1956, he was a fellow traveler of the French Communist Party, albeit
breaking with it after the Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1956." The
charges should be amended. Sartre was more than a "fellow traveler."
According to Baldwin, Sartre was member of the French Communist Party
having joined during the Korean War. While he left the Party over the
1956 Hungary issue, his final break with it did not occur until 1968.
What about this first charge. Only a typical right-wing anticommunist
knows nothing would want to put Sartre in the dock on this charge.
Throughout France and Italy the Communists were extremely popular in
the years before the invasion of Hungary. Europeans knew to whom their
liberation from Hitler and his Nazi armies was due. We Americans like
to say we saved the French, that we defeated the Nazis, etc., and
carry on as if we should get most of, or even all of, the credit.
You would think it was the Battle of the Bulge that decided the war.
But 80% of the German forces were in the East confronting the Soviets.
That is where the war was won. D-Day was a mopping up operation in
comparison. Throughout Europe everyone knew it was the Communists who
were the main force in the resistance movements against the fascists.
For Sartre, who had committed himself to anti-imperialism, to peace,
and to the working class as the most progressive class in society, it
was only natural that he should join the Party.
The second charge was that in the years 1970-1974 he "supported French
Maoists." This is a bogus charge, and Riding knows it. It was
Voltaire, one of Sartre's fellow pantheon members, who said "I
disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right
to say it." And Riding says Sartre's "counsel" could claim "he was
defending their right to exist more than their views."
Riding reports on four more of Sartre's position on which "time
favored him." Independent intellectuals can often mess up even with
good intentions and Sartre was no exception. I say this because I
think we made errors in two of the four positions mentioned by Riding.
But first the positive. One, he was one of the first to support the
right of Algeria to independence. This took a lot of courage as French
fascists tried to assassinate him for being so outspoken, Two, he was
an opponent to the US war against the Vietnamese people. Riding could
have elaborated a bit here. Sartre co-chaired (with Bertrand Russell)
the International War Crimes Tribunal that exposed the acts of war
crimes in Asia by the US (still, as usual, going on in Iraq and
elsewhere.)
Now the negative. Three, he went to Cairo in 1967 and made a speech on
the right of Israel to exist. That is all well and good but he should
have also called for the creation of a Palestinian state. But this was
before the 1967 war and the take over of the West Bank and the true
nature of Zionism was not so clear to many European intellectuals.
Finally he broke with Fidel and Cuba (1971) over the perennial
question of "persecution" of dissidents. I can only say that Sartre
was too shrill. He forgot that the full force of US imperialism was
(and still is), as far as possible, being directed against Cuba and in
order to survive it is only natural for the Cubans to take corrective
action against those they perceive as helping the US against them
internally. Sometimes Voltaire has to take a back seat until we can
create the conditions to seat him front row center.
He had two other worthy actions according to Riding. He stood with the
students in May 1968 and, near the end of his life, he supported the
demand that Vietnamese boat people be given refuge in France. One
should also note that he refused, in 1964, the Nobel Prize in
Literature. Riding quotes him: "a writer should refuse to be allowed
to be transformed into an institution."
With the collapse of the Soviet Union progressives around the world
are being forced to rethink the Marxist tradition. Sartre wrote, "I
consider Marxism the one philosophy of our time which we cannot go
beyond and.
I hold the ideology of existence and its `comprehensive'
method to be an enclave inside Marxism, which simultaneously engenders
it and rejects it." Whether Sartre is relevant or irrelevant will
depend on how interested students of the future are in engaging with
his thoughts on Marxism.
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